Part 5 (1/2)

I laugh and laugh.

”This is . . . I mean! Oh! Can you . . . ?” I hoot, and no one understands.

I need to wait for the bleeding to die down before I can unlock the door. I have to wait for the blood to clot.

”What's taking you so long, Chris?” asks my mother.

Paul snorts, ”Like it's shaving he's doing for the first time in there.”

”Paul!” says my mother. ”You apologize to Chris! When he comes out.”

When the blood clots, which is quickly, and I reappear, I have a couple of small triangular cuts that don't amount to much. I have three thin red lines on my upper lip, like a mustache drawn with a ruler in red pen.

That is the story of my first shave.

The day after my first shave Rebecca Schwartz and I talk. I am feeling very sleepy because I didn't sleep much the night before.

She says, ”Oh, Chris, what happened to your face?”

I instinctively flip my tongue up to feel the three crusted lines.

I shrug and look at the metal leg of a desk. ”I, you know. I had this shaving accident,” I say.

She winces. ”Looks like it hurt,” she says.

”Yeah,” I say. We stare at each other.

She suggests, ”Next time leave the rototiller outside.”

Then someone calls for her, and she excuses herself and walks away.

She floats above the tiles, wearing a Laura Ashley dress. At least, I think it's a Laura Ashley dress. I mean, I haven't gone up behind her and flipped the tag or anything.

A few seconds later, I think what I should have said was ”Lion taming.”

d.a.m.n.

Then, in gym I am doing pushups, and suddenly I realize I could have said, ”It was a duel. Sabers. You know, defending your honor.”

Then she'd say slyly, ”Oh, yes, Tom told me you get very fierce when my honor's at stake.”

And I'd say, ”Of course. It was at dawn out back of the A&P.”

And she'd laugh, and I'd see something in her eyes.

That is not what happened.

Instead I was sleepy and said shaving wound.

The shaving wound was not as good a story.

For instance, there's no part about romance and a shaving wound in all of The Three Musketeers The Three Musketeers or or The Count of Monte Cristo. The Count of Monte Cristo.

There are more vampiric murders in the news that week. The most brutal is in Northborough. Two victims are found together. They are a boy and a girl, caught fooling around in the woods. It is established that the vampire drank the boy first, in front of the girl. She evidently tried to run away, but her pants were around her ankles, so she could only waddle about fifteen feet before the vampire walked up behind her.

They are found in the morning. The vampire is not found at all.

The way they eat disgusts me.

We are in our family dining room, which is part of the kitchen and separated by a counter. My parents had track lighting installed in the kitchen, so we can turn off the light near the refrigerator and stove and have only lights from above s.h.i.+ne on the table. In spite of the fact that we have nothing to say to one another, my parents insist that we should eat together because we are a family. We each think things alone, and occasionally say things that might be of interest to one another.

e.g., ”These peas are a bit overcooked.”

And, ”Stop complaining. Your father and I worked hard to put this dinner on the table.”

And, ”I wasn't complaining. I was just developing my critical faculties.”

And, ”Do you want to develop your critical faculties with a TV tray in the garage?”

But the main thing is the chewing. That I see now.

I cannot believe how loud human ingestion is. I sit there, unable to eat, astonished. I am staring at my plate with eyes as big as plates. I can't believe my ears, hearing the factoryful of noises, the squelching and popping, crunching and scratching. The rattle of forks against ceramic. The slurp of liquids. The clanging of gla.s.ses against teeth.

It's like cannon fire. It's like hydraulic tubes and stormy surf against bleak rocky islands.

They sit there, unaware of how grotesque their feeding is. They're hunched below the clean strip lights like praying mantises - and I sit horrified as they cut burned legs and chests apart, and feed them into their greedy mandibles, and smile like nothing's wrong.

”Eat, Chris,” says my mother. ”You don't think I cook for my own good, do you?”

My father looks at me over his gla.s.ses. He chews three times with a sound like the Swamp Thing learning how to use crutches. What he says is ”Come on, Chris. You need to put a little flesh onto those bones.”

At 11:53 p.m., about two weeks after I speak to Chet the Celestial Being, an evil mouth appears on TV. At that time all television reception in Clayton and Bradley and all the surrounding towns suddenly fails. There is nothing but static for a second. I am upstairs lying in bed already, but I hear my father swear downstairs.

The next day, it's on the local news. They play tapes of what came on.

The static, a gray sludge spanking again and again across the screen, spits and jabs out a messy outline - a huge maw - crooked teeth like mountains gagging and croaking - and a voice, growling and gutteral, howls through the raging storm of static: . . . out . . .

. . . trapped and . . .

. . . you maggots little maggots . . .

Release - ! . . . this torment! Torment! Our hatred - Soon! . . . Now! Trapped!

Your blood, d.a.m.n you, all you . . .

. . . out of this place . . .

Then there is a wailing that is so ferocious and yet so melancholy that it blasts the regularly scheduled programs back on TV.

n.o.body knows where the transmission came from. The rest of the night on television is as placid as a cold mountain pool that n.o.body has found or stirred.