The Letter

The middle-aged man entered his son's apartment,   dread making the room seem darker than it could possibly be in the mid-afternoon. Anguish had aged him a decade overnight, stooping his shoulders better than a pallet of brick could have done over a lifetime. He wasn't sure what he expected, but  what he saw didn't meet it; the apartment seemed in order, nothing destroyed, nothing vandalized. This was the last place anyone knew his son had been alive and normal. It shouldn't seem so commonplace.

He walked to the desk, remembering his boy, smiling broadly the last time he was home, describing the new apartment. Close to campus, spacious, cheaper than he'd ever dreamed he could find. A dream, he'd said. A steal.

A single sheet of paper lay on the desk, conspicuously alone. He picked it up and began to read. His hand, already shaking, began to shake violently as he finished and sank to his knees, sobbing.

Dear Dad,

If all goes well, you won’t see this letter. It's full of things I would never normally share with you, Dad. So I hope you'll never see it. I hope I’ll be burning it at first morning's light. Because either I’ve lost my mind, or something far darker is happening within me. I’m hoping for insanity.

I know how much you worry about me. “So far away in college,” you say almost every time we talk. “So far away.” And you’re right, of course. I’m farther away than you’ve ever gone in your whole life. I’m farther away than I ever imagined I’d be.

Maybe that’s why this seems like it could be real.

It started last night, Dad, and I swear, I swear, it seemed innocent. It was innocent. I was trying to do the right thing, trying to help out. It was something you’d do, Dad. Something honorable and gallant and … How could it turn so wrong so fast?

She was standing outside the apartment complex, looking down the road in the pouring rain. She was drenched, but she stood straight and tall, erect in the downpour. She brushed wet bangs out of her face as I got out of the car and locked it. I almost missed her, jogging for the building, trying to stay at least a little dry.

God, I wish I’d missed her.

“Are you okay?” I asked her, slowing before I’d even gotten a good start. I must have yelled a little, to be heard over the rainfall, because she started and looked at me, eyes wide.

She was beautiful. Dark hair, fair skin and eyes so deep it felt like you could fall into them and drown. She smiled, just the slightest turn of the corners of her mouth, but just that was like a reward.

“I’m fine,” she said. She brushed rain off of her perfect face. “I’m  waiting.”

“Waiting? For what?” I couldn’t keep from asking her the question; it seemed to need to be asked, and there was no one else around.

“My friend. She promised to pick me up here about twenty minutes ago. And the rain started and I've been watching so carefully, but …” And she shrugged her shoulders. "I walked up from the pond and I'm sure she didn't come before I got here."

"From the pond??" I looked at the small body of water that accompanied the small golf course that stretched near the apartments. Fog lifted from it now in lazy, shifting clouds. I laughed a little. "YOu didn't fall in, did you?"

She looked at me with such a weird expression, Dad. She shook her head. "Why would you think that?"

“You’ve been waiting out in this flood for twenty minutes?” I wasn't sure why I'd asked it. I'd meant it as a joke, you know, because she was so completely soaked through. But she took it ... wrong. Something in me twitched but I ignored it.

She nodded. Even that seemed beyond a nod – something more excellent than just a movement of her head. It seemed …

“You can’t wait out here,” I protested. “You’ll catch a cold.”

“I won’t. I can’t catch cold.”

“Everyone catches cold.” I smiled at her. “And I can’t let you take that kind of chance. My apartment is right here.” I pointed. “You can watch for your friend from the window.”

She looked at me, as if trying to size up my character, trying to decide if she’d be going from a rainstorm to something worse.

“Hey,” I said, “I’m one of the good guys. I promise. No strings, no expectations. Just a dry place to wait until your friend shows up.”

She hesitated a second longer. Lightning cut a swath through the dark sky, and the rain started to pelt us even harder than before. “Okay,” she said, and I pointed to my apartment. We hurried to the door and she watched as I opened it.

We stepped inside and I got a towel for her from the bathroom, offered her some hot chocolate and asked her if she wanted to use the phone.

“Why?” she asked.

“To call your friend.”

“Oh. No. She doesn’t have a cell phone.” She started to towel dry her hair, and I realized how incredibly long it was, how gorgeous she was, even soaking wet.

“Who doesn’t own a cell phone these days?” I asked, and went to turn up the heat for her.

She stepped away from the window to stand under a vent, soaking up the heat just like her clothing had soaked up the rain outside. She was drying her body now, running the towel down her shirt, watching me watch her.

“I’m soaked,” she said.

“I know.”

The words were so innocent, but they were electric. My throat tightened, my breath quickened …

She bent to dry her legs and kicked off her shoes. “I’m cold,” she said.

I don’t remember how we got there, Dad, but the next thing I know we’re in the bedroom, and she’s next to me in the bed. She was cold, I mean ice cold, snuggling up next to me, pulling at my shirt, nipping at my neck.

And then she was on top of me, still as cold as an ice princess, and the glow from the streetlight outside my window was lighting her like a floodlamp. It reflected off her breasts, her cheekbones, the perfect flatness of her abdomen. I couldn’t catch my breath, couldn’t think. She leaned forward and rocked slowly back and forth, moaning softly as she breathed into my neck.

“Oh,” she whispered. “Oh, I’m alive, I’m alive.”

I didn’t understand her words right then, but they excited me even more. I wrapped my arms around her naked back and pulled her closer to me. She kissed and nibbled at my ears, my jaw-line, my neck. The pain was horrific when she bit down into the front of my neck, Dad. But even though I felt it with every fiber of my being, even though it was the worst pain I’ve ever experienced, it still didn’t dampen my passion for her.

I woke up later, hours later, alone. I slipped out of bed and went into the bathroom. It took my eyes a minute to adjust to th harsh glare of the bathroom light, but I squinted against it and looked into the mirror at the marks on my neck. They hurt like hell, and they itched.  I fingered them, shaking my head in disbelief. Two bite marks, Dad. Two fang marks.

I went looking for her. It occurred to me, as I went down the short hall, that she’d never mentioned her friend again, never worried that she’d miss her ride. And then I entered the living room.

She was hanging from the ceiling fan, Dad. It was awful. She was limp and lifeless, her body swinging slightly from some unfelt breeze. I froze, and then I guess I freaked out a little bit. I threw up on the carpet, stumbled forward to touch her and fell to my knees. She was ice cold, but worse than that, I could feel the decay of her skin. It wasn't fair and soft anymore. It was ... it was disgusting and putrid. She wasn’t freshly dead, Dad. She’d been dead a long, long time.

I called 911, but I don't have any idea what I said. The EMS guys got here pretty quick.

“What the hell –“ one said as they stepped inside.

They both looked at me, shocked and scared. I looked at the girl, seeing her again as she'd been, then as she was at that moment. I thought I might be sick again.

They told me she’d been dead for days, maybe weeks. But how can that be, Dad? How can that be?

The two called the cops, and then treated the bite marks on my neck. They stood as far away from me as they could, reaching full arm's length to treat me. All they did was put some antibiotic cream on it, I think, and they bandaged it up. It itched like crazy. It still does.

The cops came and stopped at the door, just like the medics.  One pulled his pistol and pointed it me and told me not to move. The other walked to the girl. He reached up to touch her and ... Oh, Dad, I can't believe this part, and  I watched it, I saw it happen. The cop touched her and she crumbled into dust, just a pile of dust laying in the middle of my living room floor. The noose hung from the ceiling fan still, but she was gone. 

They didn't arrest me, didn't even ask a lot of questions. They thought it was some sort of Halloween prank. A horrible, demented prank with a dead woman. Or not a dead woman, but some kind of imitation that I could control at will. They all looked at me different after she disappeared like that. They all left as quickly as they could, the EMTs telling the cops that what they'd seen had been a real body, that they knew real bodies from fakes.  

They didn’t believe me, Dad. I don’t believe me, either.

I hope you never read this letter, Dad. I hope no one ever reads it. If all goes well, if I’ve dreamed all this, or imagined all this, or just made it up in a mad dip into the bizarre, I’ll burn this letter in the morning. If not, I want you to know that whatever kind of monster I become, whatever shape you find me in later, I’m still one of the good guys. I didn’t do anything wrong.

I’m sitting watching the clock right now, waiting for midnight, waiting for the Day of the Dead. I’m hoping above all hope that nothing will happen when that clock strikes twelve.

The rain has finally stopped and I’m looking out at the full moon, Dad, and I’m scared.

I hope I can just burn this damned letter, Dad.

I love y~~

The writing trailed off, squiggles and lines where the final line jerked to a halt.