"Rave On" (Spencer's story) by Jeri Smith-Ready

“Rave On” by Spencer Wallace

They shoved a handkerchief reeking of aftershave in my mouth, muffling my screams. I kicked out, but one of them sat on my legs while the other yanked my arms above my head. Then came the snick of a switchblade.

The knife exploded into my gut. I shrieked, but couldn't get enough breath to scream again. Another stab, and blood filled my mouth.

I heard shouts from what felt like a distance, but I didn't care. The darkness was reaching for me, pulling me to a painless place.

When I closed my eyes, I saw Jean's face. When I opened them, I saw Lillie's.

"I came back," she whispered. "You called me, and I came." She smoothed back my hair, pasted against my scalp with cold sweat. "We don't have much time, Spencer. Do you want to live?"

What kinda question was that? I stared up at her, but her face was too blurry for me to see what she meant. So I focused every scrap of strength in my body into one word:

"Yes."

She kissed me. Her cool lips soothed the agony inside, and I figured she was just giving me something to cling to so I wouldn't let death take me before the ambulance came.

But then…well, then things got kooky.

Lillie tore open my shirt, and the pain in my stomach spiked. Fingers of cold steel gripped my wrists, and my knees popped under a hard weight. I thought maybe those men had come back. I struggled harder, though I knew I couldn't protect Lillie, with the state I was in.

"Don't move," she said.

Was she talking to me? I lifted my head to look at her, then wished I hadn't.

Blood soaked the lower half of her face, so I couldn't see where her skin ended and her lips began. But I could surely see that pair of long white fangs.

I screamed.

"Pipe down!" Her fist flashed. Pain exploded in my head. The back of my skull slammed the pavement, and my muscles went limp.

Another stab to the gut, this one smaller. The pain shifted out of my body, like it belonged to someone lying next to me.

"Not long now," Lillie whispered, her voice slow and thick.

She lied to me, I thought. But this was better than a lonely, all-night death in a cold alley, or taking days to die in the hospital from infected wounds.

Lillie slipped her arms around my body. "Almost…" She rocked me, rubbing little circles on my back like I was a baby. "Just a little further away now."

I slipped into the deepest sleep of my life, a long slide down a warm, soft tunnel. My heartbeat slowed. A white light pulled me on with no hurry. I could take my time getting there, just float forever until I—

"Come back," she said.

Hot thick liquid filled my mouth and flowed down my throat. I swallowed it. I inhaled it. I made it a part of me, so I could make her a part of me.

Because it wasn't just the blood. It was Lillie I couldn't live without, from the moment I pulled that shade to see her standing in the streetlight. So I clutched her arm to my mouth and drank. My heart roared and throbbed with new life that those goons could never take from me again.

Her blood sang in my veins, like it was coming home.

* * *

When I was eleven, I grew three inches in one year. I'd wake up screaming every night from charley horses that tied my leg muscles in knots. Mamma called them 'growing pains.'

The Change was like mashing a whole year of growing pains into one hour. My bones hardened and my muscles thickened. My eyes burned, my ears whistled, and the space behind my nose crackled and popped.

Lillie held me through it all, and told me what I'd become, how I'd be young forever, how I'd never see the sun, how we'd never be apart. The last bit was all I cared about, because I knew if she left me, I'd die again, and this time not so fast. This time forever.

When I opened my eyes, I saw light in every shadow. I heard a rat poking through garbage a block away.

And I smelled the blood. Not mine. Not Lillie's. Prey.

I pushed her off and sprang toward the street. Three bodies sprawled across the alley, necks twisted and eyes glazed.

I hunched over the fat throat of the one who'd stabbed me. My fangs came out for the first time—long, sharp, and ready for revenge.

"Spencer, no!"

Lillie's low growl froze me as my mouth touched his skin. Thirsty as I was, I would've starved before disobeying her.

I whimpered and sat back on my haunches, like a sad old dog. "Why not? They're still warm."

"We only drink the dead when we're desperate." She strolled over to me, hips swaying. "Besides, these twerps shouldn't be your first meal." She stroked my hair. "My man deserves better."

I stood slowly and gazed down at Lillie's face. Her skin glistened in the dim light, the stains wiped clean except for her red, swollen mouth.

I kissed her hard, thirsty for more than blood. Her lips were as hot and hungry as mine, and when my hand slid under her skirt, she moaned, grinding her hips with such need, I thought I'd die all over again.

Up against that brick wall, we finished what we'd started the night before. We bit and scratched and shrieked like alley cats, leaving wounds on each other that lasted long enough for a taste. I knew right then that I'd never call myself dead.

When it was over, Lillie stood trembling in my arms, like I was the strong one, though I knew she could snap me in half with two fingers.

She looked up at me with wet eyes. "You don't know how long I've waited for this."

I traced her lips with my thumb, wanting to kiss them again, feel them all over my skin. "Why me?"

"I've been stuck on you for weeks," she said, "since I heard your show. It's the first sound since '29 that made me want to go on the make." She slid her hands over my hips. "Made me feel alive again."

"Was this part of the plan? Turnin' me into a—" I couldn't say the word vampire, not yet. "One of you?"

"Yes." Lillie wiped away a mascara smear. "Then after we met, I changed my mind. I tried to resist." She glanced at the ground behind me-at the bodies, I reckon-and her eyes got hard. "But when I saw them hurting you, I had to make you mine." Her mouth turned into a shy smile, making my heart flop in my chest. "Like a stray puppy."

I gave a low laugh and leaned close. "I ain't no puppy dog," I whispered against her lips, then kissed her deep and slow until she squirmed in my arms again.

Suddenly she pulled away. "You're getting cold." She touched my cheek, like a mother feeling a child for fever. "Spencer, you need to drink."

I nodded and moved to bite her neck.

"Not me." Lillie grabbed my face and made me look at her. "My blood's no use to you now. Only they can feed you." She shifted her gaze toward the street. "We have a whole city to hunt."

I thought about my city—its streets, its music, its life. And then it was like I woke up from a dream and remembered who I was. Jean's husband. Donna's father. What the hell did I just do?

I stepped away from Lillie like she was poison. "I gotta see my family."

Her eyes widened. "Are you crackers? That's the last thing—"

"I gotta tell Jean." I turned away from Lillie—something I didn't think was possible—and lit out for the street.

"You can't tell anyone!"

I took off, ignoring her call to come back. My legs ran faster than ever, but as I got near my neighborhood, strength started to dribble out of me like water from a leaky faucet. My throat burned with thirst, and I smelled human after human who'd ease that pain. But all I wanted was home.

The light was on in our kitchen, and a shadow moved behind the curtains. I stumbled up the porch steps to stand outside the door. I felt like I should knock, like it wasn't my house.

Then it hit me like a freight train. Her scent. Jean's skin, Jean's hair, Jean's clothes.

Jean's blood.

I didn't knock, just tore open the door. The frame splintered and shattered, and the knob came off in my hand.

Jean turned and gave a little squeak, backing up against the stove. "Spencer—"

"Don't scream," I whispered, holding out a hand. "You'll wake the baby."

She touched her chest through her pink flannel nightgown and stared at my bloody shirt. "Good Lord, what happened? You need a doctor." She reached for the phone.

"No, I don't." I shifted closer, cutting off her path to the hall. "I need you."

She leaped back from me and the phone, her eyes wide. "Honey, what's going on?"

God almighty, she smelled so good. And she looked—well, she didn't look like my wife no more. I couldn't see her face, just the vein in the side of her neck, so close to her creamy skin, calling to me.

I stepped closer. She stepped back. Soon she'd be up against the sink, with nowhere to run. I pulled in a breath, to taste her sweat in the air, then held that breath to hear her heartbeat, fluttering like a little bird. My jaw shook so hard, my teeth chattered.

The fangs came out.

Jean's mouth fell open. "No…" Cornered, she slid open the drawer next to the sink and pulled out the scissors. "Stay back!"

I wanted to laugh. She might as well have come at me with a dishrag.

"Jeannie…Jeannie, it's still me, baby." I looked into her eyes, and her face went slack. Her hand dropped slowly, then let go of the scissors. They thumped on the linoleum floor at her feet.

"It's not you," she whispered. "I know it's not you."

I moved to stand an inch away, my hands shaking from the urge to grab her, rip her apart to make the blood come fast and hot. If she'd fought me or even flinched…

But she was frozen. "Don't hurt Donna." A tear slipped out of the corner of each eye. "Promise it'll just be me."

"I promise." I held her gently by the waist and lowered my mouth to her neck. "Don't move."

She didn't, except to tilt her head away, showing her throat. I let instinct and the heat of her pulse tell me where to pierce.

Suddenly Jean stiffened in my arms. "Who's that?" she said with a sharp voice.

I looked over my shoulder to see Lillie standing inside the shattered doorway. She looked so out of place in that ordinary little kitchen, like a diamond on a slab of concrete.

I turned back to Jean, ready to share her with Lillie. My first gift to the woman who'd saved me.

But the spell was broken. The little-lamb fear in Jean's eyes had turned to fury.

"How could you?" she hissed.

The blood surged hot under her skin, and I wanted to drink her worse than ever-not just to stop the burning in my throat, but to wipe that judgment off her face.

"Lillie's with me." I put my hands behind my back to keep them from Jean's throat. "I'm leavin' now."

"Yes," Jean said with the coldest voice I'd ever heard. "You are."

I stepped back, and it was so hard, like scaling a brick wall with nothing but fingernails. Everything inside me craved her skin and her blood.

Lillie laid her hand on my arm. "Don't pack a suitcase," she said in a low voice. "I'll get you everything you need."

"I bet you will," Jean spat. She was shaking all over, and I could tell she wanted to hurl herself at us.

I knew I'd pounce if she moved an inch, so I turned away. "Baby, I'm sorry." I took a deep breath. "Tell Donna—"

"I'll tell her you're dead."

I shuddered, then closed my eyes and strangled the last piece of the man I used to be. "Yeah."

As I followed Lillie out the door, I saw her slip a wooden stake back into her purse.

* * *

We found someone else right after—it don't matter who, except that he tasted like heaven and had a brand-new Mercury.

As we drove over the Mississippi River into Arkansas, I didn't bother watching Memphis fade in the rearview mirror. Lillie was my home now.

We stopped at a juke joint off Highway 79, and danced to Buddy Holly until dawn painted the sky gray. The music crawled under my skin and throbbed in my veins, like I was hearing it with my whole body instead of just my ears. I was alive.

Later that morning, lying in a pure dark tornado shelter with Lillie's arms around me, I thought I'd never, ever miss the sun.

The End