8. THE CEMETERY
We walked together, our pointer fingers romantically linked. The cemetery loomed
ahead of us covered in a dark haze of night, lit only by a sliver of moon. Twilight! I mean, Nightlight!
I could feel the excitement bubbling up inside of me. Yes, my romantic conquest was finally coming to
fruition. I would prove to Edwart that I was eligible to become a vampire by bringing him to a place that
sort of tangentially has to do with vampires. It was a flawless plan.
Boy, would Mom and Dad be surprised! And the people in Phoenix
would I be a vampire, but I wouldfinally have my upper-ear pierced. Before Edwart bit me, I was going
to ask him to squeeze my hand tightly and stick a fang through the cartilage of my left ear. I hoped he had
brought a hypoallergenic stud-earring with him. I wondered what people at school would think when they
saw the New Me. They would think:Ahhh! Vampire! Stake her!
But as we neared the gate, Edwart began to grow uneasy, my first clue that something was terribly
wrong. Our pace had slowed to a crawl, and as I looked at him I began to realize that even his walk had
become abnormal. He was lurching awkwardly and holding his stomach with an odd expression on his
face—the expression of a bat, lurching through a cemetery on its haunches. To be honest, that’s what
most of Edwart’s expressions reminded me of.
“What’s wrong, Edwart?” I asked.
“Do we have to go through the cemetery? It’s my meds. I’ve been off them for two days now, and
anything that causes fear makes me nauseated. Actually, anything that causes emotion makes me
nauseated.”
Why would fear be a problem?I wondered. We were going to a cemetery, the Chuck E. Cheese’s of vampires! But I knew I had to play the caring girlfriend.
“Let’s find a place where you can lie down,” I said maternally but also seductively. I took his hand and
pulled him through the gate, but he grabbed one of the gate’s bars and clung stubbornly. I pried his
fingers off, one by one, as he whimpered. Finally, using all my weight, I was able to push him through the
gate. We had entered the cemetery, or, as I assumed vampires call it, the ce-marry-me-tery. (I later
found out that, in fact, they call it a cemetery.)
As Edwart talked about something (Who ever knew what he was talking about? Who ever listened? He
was adorable, though), I swung our clasped hands a little, placing my other hand over his mouth
affectionately. I imaged what I would be like after the transformation took place. I could probably wear
leggings as pants every day, and no one would say anything because they would be afraid I’d bite them.
What would my special name be? Probably Alice
would my special power be? Probably the power to drink blood without a chaser.
The mood was perfect. Veiled in dim light, the cemetery seemed to cry out, “Suck your girlfriend’s
blood! She’s ready! She’s targeted! You don’t need to exertany energy—all you need to do is open
your mouth and she can run into your tooth if you’re tired.” As soon as I realized that I was screaming
this in Edwart’s ear, I stopped and politely apologized, stepping away to give him personal space.
After one last nervous glance at the gravestones, he pulled me close. “Don’t. Leave. My. Side,” he
quavered, hanging onto my arm and burying his head below my shoulder. It felt natural.
I surveyed my surroundings and mentally formulated a description of them. Grave after grave poked up
from the grass. It was like a formation of grave-soldiers, lined up in a grave phalanx of grave-like
proportions. A grave sight indeed. I think there were also some trees and stuff.
As we walked along the winding paths, I had a thought. It was a little thought, spoken by a little internal
voice, like the one that asks if you are afraid of it and you say no and it saysifyou ever try to get rid of
me you will live to regret it . My though was this: What if I became an incredibly bloodthirsty vampire?
What if that was the sole reason Edwart hadn’t bitten me, thereby destroying my soul? What if when his
mom had offered me peach cobbler, I shouldn’t have eaten piece after piece until there was none left
while his family watched with hungry eyes? Maybe I shouldn’t have eaten all the hotdogs, either. But I
wasn’t about to rudely let all that human food go to waste. I still don’t know why, after making a plate of
food for me, Eva served the members of her vampire family as well. That was awfully presumptive. What
if I didn’t feel like walking around the table, piling their food onto my plate?
“Edwart,” I said, deciding it was time to be direct. “If I were a vampire, I would have no trouble
resisting people’s blood—even Lucy’s. I know I told you that if I ever became a vampire the first thing I
would do is invite Lucy to an action movie in a dark, deserted theater, but I was joking. In all
seriousness, the first thing I would do is bite a beautiful rhododendron, and win a Nobel Prize for
engineering immortal flora that could survive even in deserts.”
“Belle,” he said, taking both my hands. “If we don’t sit down, I will barf something up. I’m not sure what
because I did not eat anything other than orange soda today, but it could be anything from my kidney to
my other kidney.”
“Okay.”
After twenty more minutes of moonlit stroll, we settled down on the most comfortable-looking grave I
could find, which happened to be covered in plush leather. “James C. ‘Leather-King’ Murphy, 1906–1975, King of Leather and Also Owner of a Leather Store,” it said.
We settled down and began to enjoy the romance of each other, almost like a warm glow inside of us.
This is the way married grownups feel all the time.
“Edwart,” I said. “I am so grateful to be here with you. Are you feeling better?”
“Yes, Belle. Much better.”
I smiled to myself, and my future vampire-self. I was happy, remembering how embarrassed I was for
this girl at 8th grade graduation because her dad was much older than all the other dads. Edwart and I
would never get old. I began to reapply my grapefruit perfume so my blood wouldn’t have an
unshowered-for-weeks taste when he bit me.
“What’s that smell? Is it grapefruit?” Edwart asked. I was surprised that he hadn’t lost his memory about
human food, the way most vampires do. But, at the same time, I wasn’t surprised: it really smelled a lot
like grapefruit.
“Don’t you just love being among all these dead people?” I asked, gesturing to the surroundings.
“Well, to be honest, I actually think that part is a little weird. I would like nothing better than to leave this
cemetery, make sure you get home safely, and then curl up in my bed with a tall glass of diluted ginger
ale.”
How sweet of him, to say something that didn’t make sense for a vampire to say. I casually thrust my
neck towards him, bathing it in the moonlight.
“Is your neck OK?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Is it? What do you think, Edwart?” I massaged it suggestively, suggesting that I had slept
on a pile of coals.
“Does it hurt?” he asked.
I had to think fast. Did he want for it to hurt? Was that some kind of weird vampire thing where they
prefer to bite necks that hurt, the way my mother had always told me that the way you know a piece of
fruit is ripe is that it looks like it hurts?
“Um, y-yes,” I stammered, silently thanking the forces that be for the improv class I took last summer.
“It hurts. It hurts terribly.”
Then something magical happened. Edwart poked my neck. Fire rushed through my entire body. I
grabbed his finger, intoxicated by its caress, and gasped for air like a fish out of water gasps for less air.
He patted my neck a few times. I wondered if he was putting alcohol on it, the way doctors do before
giving you shots.
“How does that feel?” he asked.
“Like, happy.” The truth was, it felt completely indescribable. A patch of blackberries—that’s how I
would describe it.
“Okay, great!” he said, and stopped.” That was quick!”
“Oh, um, you know what?” I said, improvising again. “It hurts again. Worse. Much, much worse. Say! I
have an idea! You couldbite me , and thenI would never feel pain again.”
He gave me a look like I was crazy-crazy in love—just as the ground began to shake violently.
“What’s happening? Is this part of the transformation process?” I asked, a little unnerved.
“An earthquake?” Edwart suggested with the coldly calculating reasoning of a vampire.
Suddenly the ground split open beneath us, cracking the tombstone in half, and from the grave emerged
a figure with bloodstained fangs and a black cape whose tall, curved collar was neatly pressed down in
obvious defiance of the current trends.
“Are y-y-you … the Leather King?” I managed to ask.
“No,” said the figure. “You seriously don’t recognize me?”
I looked at him closely: the pale face, the cape, the red eyes, the ridiculously large fangs. I couldn’t place
him.
“Um, do I know you from work?” I strained to remember if he was one of my co-workers. I strained to
remember if I had a job.
“Goodness gravy, Belle—I sit next to you everyday in English!”
“I’m sorry—every face at school kind of blends into one conglomerate dull face except for the face of
Edwart Mullen, the love of my life.”
He clapped his hands slowly, sinisterly. “Well congratulations toyou two,” he said. “I hope you have a
really happy life forever and ever in your sweet little house behind a neatly mowed lawn. What you two
have is special—you know that?Really special. We’re allvery jealous of your overwhelming love for one
another.”
“Thank you.”
“To get on with my point, I’m Joshua. A Vampire. I don’t mean to be rude, but you two are trespassing
on my grave property right now. I’m truly sorry about all this Belle—honestly I think you’re very
attractive, even though you don’t wear makeup or pay attention to the fashions. To make a confession, I
had every intention of asking you to prom the first week of school. But now I’m going to have to take
your lives, unfortunately, to nourish myself.”
I balked. Another vampire? I guess it made sense; the states of the Pacific Northwest were known for
their lenient monster laws.
Next to me, Edwart screamed and covered his eyes, likely visualizing his triumph over this flamboyantly
costumed vampire. I relaxed, comfortably settling into the gravestone, ready to watch what every girl
hopes to experience once: a real-life vampire fight.
“Not so fast, Josh,” I said from my seat. “Cut him up into little bits and burn them, Edwart!”
“What?Why would I do that? Why would I everever do that?” he pondered and then gave me a sharp
look. “No! I am not pondering that, Belle! I am hysterically yelling right now. I am experiencing the
greatest fear I have ever felt in my life.”
Edwart was visibly shaking—I think that happens when vegetarian vampires haven’t eaten a bear in a
while or something.
“Edwart, we don’t have time to have another DTR talk right now. There’sanother vampire now, and I
don’t think he’s familiar with Peter Singer’sThe Ethics of What We Eat.”
“Anothervampire?” he looked behind his shoulder. “Where’s the first?” he quavered, most likely from
hunger. He gave me another sharp look. “NO! Stop that! I am not quavering from hunger! That doesn’t
even make sense.”
“Come on, Edwart,” I cajoled. “He’s a vampire, you’re a vampire: get to work!”
“Stop, Belle! This is serious—this is not a good time to role-play.”
“Role-play?”
“Yeah, role-play. Like that time we role-played that I could lift Tom Newt’s car, or when we
role-played that I could reach speeds of up to a hundred mph. Or the one where I had to wear vampire
teeth and tell you how much I wanted to drain out all your blood when I first laid eyes on you.” He froze.
“Whoa. Some of this stuff is starting to come together.”
I turned to Joshua, signaling that we needed some time to work this out.
“You know what?” Joshua said. “Even though I am a real vampire, which means by nature I am aloof
and hot-tempered, I will give you guys some time. Don’t mind me—I’ll stand right here, silently seething
and flashing my eyes.”
“So all this time you thought I was avampire?” Edwart whispered furiously, pulling me a few inches to
the left.
“Sure,” I said, “you know, the lion falls for the lamb …”
“What?”
“Sorry. It’s easier for me if I explain things in animal terms.”
“So you thought I was a … lamb?”
“No, a lion. Or, you know, you’re the shark and I’m the seal.”
He stared at me blankly.
“Okay,” I tried again. “You’re the giraffe and I’m the leaf.”
“Are you breaking up with me?” he asked quietly.
“Of course not,” I said tenderly. “Only if you’re not a vampire.”
“But I’m not a vampire.”
“But … you are kind of a control freak. In a vampire way.”
“Youmade me boss you around! And while we’re being honest, you’re my first girlfriend, and before I
met you I was doubtful that I had the requisite mouth muscles to speak aloud.”
I felt my entire monster-hierarchy, with Edwart Vampires at the top, realigning dramatically. “But what
about the time that we were talking about different kinds of blood and you kept talking about how each
one has its own unique merits, just like different types of wine you said, and then you went on like a
fifteen-minute rant about blood homogenization, and then you went into that elaborate mnemonic about
the various steps to take while drinking blood? You know, the five S’s: suck, sip, swirl … swirl again …
and then…”
“Simmer.”
“Yeah, simmer.”
“Wasn’t there another one?”
“I think so—I have it written down on some little cards at home.”
“So then how are you not a vampire?” I asked, purposefully not inflecting my voice at the end of my
question for a lawyer effect.
“Belle, I’m … I’m sorry. I’m not a vampire. I’m only amoderate blood drinker. I like my hamburgers
medium-rare.”
“Okay, we all set?” asked Josh, tossing another shriveled mole onto a pile.How civilized , I thought, to
have a designated place for appetizer-refuse, just like a good host providing a bowl to put shrimp tails in.
“I guess so,” I said. “Get him, Edwart!”
“No Belle—I can’t fight a monster! I will never live up to your abnormal and perverse fantasies!”
That hurt. Plenty of teenage girls wished their boyfriends were vampires. Durkheim would blame the
values of society for this. I pretty much agreed the problem came from some other place external to my
brain.
“I’m getting the hell out of here!” Edwart said, beginning to back away. “If you love me, let’s go!”
“But Edwart!” I called after him. “We have to defeat this vampire! Are you just going to leave me alone
here with him?”
“Isn’t that what you want?”
Well that proved it. A real vampire would have been sucking my blood as he said this. I watched as
Edwart disappeared into the fog, this time not in a magical way but in a loud, falling way, signifying that he
had tripped over a gravestone. Josh and I watched as he reappeared, hurdling over the gravestones as he jogged. Each time he fell, he screamed, looked back over his shoulder at us, and clambered up to his pigeon-toed feet.
Josh and I sat there, an awkward silence quickly setting in. I took out my little Edwart-keepsake knapsack. I hated to do this in front of a stranger, but I needed some release. Determinedly, I began to burn the items one-by-one: my biology lab report, my stuffed Dracula, some firewood I chopped during
our hiking trip, the chunk of hair I pulled from that waitress at Buca di Beppo. I felt better after that.
“Hmm,” I said cheerfully, “should we tell ghost stories?”
“I’m not sure you’re aware of the peril of your situation, Belle. You see—I am a hungry, amoral
vampire, and you are a vulnerable, blood-filled mortal girl. Nonetheless, I would like to share with you
one ghost story. I call this story,‘The Tale of the Long Ago Locket,’” Josh said in a shaky ghost voice.
I had definitely heard that story before. I hummed to keep myself from falling asleep.
“What’s the matter?” asked Josh. “Aren’t you interested? It’s areally scary story.”
“I know it is. I saw it on an episode ofAre You Afraid of the Dark?”
Josh glowered at me. “Most sad,” he said. “It’s too bad you know so much about ghost stories. Tell me,
do you know what a mortal girl’s best means of survival is when a vampire advances?” he asked,
advancing.
I yawned. “Yeah, I think I’ve seen that episode too.”
He leaned in close. “Run. The answer is,run,” he said, crouching down into pre-pounce position.
Suddenly, I panicked, rolling out of post-pounce position. This was wrong, all wrong! I was supposed
to be bitten by Edwart and become a vampire myself! I wasn’t supposed to be bitten by some strange
vampire and die! Everyone knows there is a fine, finicky line between eternal-life-as-vampire v.
death-as-a-human.
“I hope you like dying.” Josh spoke calmly and confidently, like the way you might speak to your
mashed potatoes.
As he took another step towards me, out of the corner of my eye I saw Edwart, bruised and battered
after finally surpassing all those gravestones, fleeing out of the gate as Joshua leaned in to bite.
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