We roam the beaches at night, when the sticky L.A. heat has simmered. The four of us: Bonnie, Scarlett, Alina, and me, the new girl. We wear Wayfarers with Disco tops, oversized leather motorcycle jackets, cowboy boots and short-shorts. We have a boombox and blast Echo and the Bunnymen, New Order, Depeche Mode, Missing Persons, and B-Movie. We call people to us: surfers catching late-night waves, party girls drinking on the shore, himbos that like to show off their muscles, a couple with their feet in the sand, taking in the moon. We start bonfires and dance around, high off cocaine which still gets our synapses firing. Find us on Venice Beach, on Santa Monica, on Hermosa. We’ve smiled at you on Manhattan Beach, our pearly whites gleaming. We’ve let you kiss our red lipstick lips, and then we drew our fangs and plunged.
Bonnie’s our leader, or so she says—the first of the Vamps. Blonde with a side-ponytail and a mansion in Malibu. Her parents always overseas chasing an endless vacation, while we squat in her basement. She’s got a button nose and too-blue eyes, lashes to die for, and an E.T. neck, long like a giraffe. She’s always in motion, fueled, on the hunt. We wouldn’t eat well without her and she makes this known. She rescued us fawns and turned us into gods, just like she’d been turned many moons ago, when she was fourteen and got into a stranger’s car, emerging full-formed.
Scarlett had been leaving a Venice drum circle in a daze when Bonnie gave her a hug. She’d been begging on the streets since she was a kid, bone-thin, feral hair you could get lost in, delighted to never have to eat again, to find a new way to be quenched. She gave up her search for Buddha long ago. When Bonnie came along, she didn’t have the energy to fight anymore, only to follow, entering Bonnie’s mansion on a hill and never leaving.
Alina’s the quiet one, speaks with her eyes. She loves Madonna and always has a Walkman playing her idol’s songs, dressing in lace gloves and a tutu. She doesn’t speak about her family much, except that they came here from Romania and threw her out of the house due her proclivities for drugs and girls. They live in an apartment downtown and sometimes she unravels from us and takes the bus over there, watching their bedroom window at night and giving it the finger, back before the sun rises.
I ran away from home when my stepfather, wasted as usual, tried to get me to sit on his lap. I squirmed as he cackled and my mother looked the other way, too desperate to give him any reason to leave. He slid his hand down my jean skirt and I clocked him in the head. Blood pooled from the wound and I licked my lips, wanting a taste, fascinated. When Bonnie found me sleeping on the beach in the dirty clothes I’d worn all week, she said she could tell how much I liked blood, that images of red danced in my eyes, same with Scarlett and Alina, same with her. She’d chosen us very carefully, and we’d have a new family now, one immortal.
I wear a choker to cover the bites she gave, two perfect circles that have begun to scab. When she dug her teeth in, I saw heaven. She swaddled me in her long arms and whispered to think of my favorite memory. I told her I didn’t have any and she wiped away my tears. “Then think of what you’d want your favorite memory to be and I’ll make it happen.” I imagined myself under the golden sun on the beach, the waves lapping against my toes, my skin humming, a boy lying next to me who I loved deeply, who said I never had to go home, that I could live with him under the rays. Little did I know, I’d never feel the sun’s kiss again.
The nights become your home. The quiet buzz of LA in darkness. Angelenos powered by the sun, in bed by nine PM, awake when it rises to do their yoga and sip their green juices, as we return from hunting, blood in our bellies, a poor fool drained and tossed into the ocean, their body beating against the rocks for the police to find. Another idiot under the influence who dared to swim at night, who stripped down to their underclothes expecting an easy lay from one of us, who danced too close to our flame.
The first was the hardest—the moral dilemma of it all. The taking of a life, transference of energy, but Bonnie schooled us well. “This is how we survive,” she warned. “Food doesn’t cut it anymore. You’ll vomit it out before it even gets digested.” She gave me a hotdog as proof, and sure enough, my body expelled its poison. The smell of food even making my stomach turn. I used to gorge on pizza and Skittles, now give me a pint of red. Lukewarm is best, since blood, as per the cliché, runs cold. A, B, AB, and O, which Bonnie likened to the different Johnny Walker labels. AB, the most exquisite, like Johnny Walker Blue, like her father kept stocked in the cellar, even though it was wasted on us now.
It’s graduation week, meaning many parties on the beaches, a smorgasbord of flesh. When someone asks what high school we go to, we tell them the opposite from what they said, or pick the largest one. We’re known as the party girls along the sand. We come prepared with pills, with booze to make them all love us. We start bonfires and watch them flock, dancing around the flames in our two-pieces, our fangs hidden behind our upper lips.
Due to the spate of deaths since we began, there’s fear of a killer prowling the beaches. The police have dubbed us The Drainer, since all the victims have been drained of their blood. No one assumes we consume the blood, simply that the killer’s fetish is to empty a body. For if a human drank all that blood, they would be dead too. We’ve stumped the cops, since they’ve never found the missing blood. We lick up every last drop. There’s no guarantee of eating, so we have to stay full. I sleep better when I’m full anyway.
A pack of douche nozzles see our bonfire and dance over. They are all tan in a way I will never be again. A blond guy seems like their leader. He has a boombox and asks—more like demands—that we like The Stray Cats. He presses play and croons to “The Stray Cat Strut.” Two girls hanging on his arms go gaga and move like they’re scuba diving. He introduces himself as Asher, his smirk sharp enough to be deadly. A typical jock that has probably been responsible for a date rape or two. He takes off his shirt to show off his golden pecs in the moonlight.
“He’s all yours,” Bonnie whispers into my ear, as she struts over to distract his friends who toss a worn football.
What she means is that I’ve never killed by myself. I’ve partook in bountiful feasts where the other Vamps have done all the work. Now it’s my time to shine. I procure a bottle of something from behind my back and he nods. Scarlett and Alina are cackling with the gaga girls and give me a discreet thumbs up.
“You’re beautiful,” he says. I know it’s a lie, since he’s already inebriated. The right side of my face was burned by an iron. The stepfather before the last one. I was just a child. I woke up to my flesh sizzling. Why I always wear my hair in a dark swoop across half my face, so no one can see my pain.
“You’re beautiful too,” I say, because he is—a Greek statue, pecs and delts and smelling of summer, of lotion, of the milk he had for lunch. My senses sharpened when I was turned. I can see through his skin as well, the beating of his heart. Until it stops.
He looks at me funny. “Guys aren’t beautiful, only chicks.”
His laughs sound like a machine gun.
I beckon him with my little finger. “Come by the water. Away from everyone else.”
I lead him down a run-off, the large rocks obscuring the bonfire. We can hear the faint beat of the music, an occasional giggle. I lean against the rock, showing off my pale legs, which I think are my best feature. I’ve painted my toes black like my heart. I tap out a line of cocaine along a pale thigh, indicate him to sample. He snorts, his nose running up into my crotch.
“What do you taste like?” he asks, pulling aside my bathing suit.
“I taste like nothing,” I say, because it’s true. There’s nothing alive inside of me anymore, except for my blood. I let him eat me out, because it’s the least I can do since I’m about to take his life. Before I turned, I once had a boyfriend. He was the only light in the midst of my hell. He was sweet. We’d kiss by the train tracks. One day he got high and was hit by an incoming train. I saw his body ripped in two, more fascinated than upset. That’s when I realized I was already ruined.
“Do you have a condom?” Asher asks.
I give a laugh, tell him it’s impossible for me to get pregnant.
“Ah, on the pill. Cool.”
He fucks me like a jackhammer, a stupid boy. He fucks me like it doesn’t even matter if I’m there. A tear shoots from my eye. I weep at the moon. I’m so lonely, and I want to want to feel something. I start to nibble his neck. My fangs sharpen in anticipation. When I sink my teeth in, he lets out a howl of pleasure. He doesn’t understand he only has a few moments left. I suck hard, his blood gushing down my throat. He begins to wiggle. “What the fuck?” he says, but I grip him tight. I’m a hundred pounds, but I’m fucking strong and golden boy doesn’t stand a chance. He’s still inside of me, his dick growing soft. I suck even harder, his body shaking. He writhes and curses, but I don’t relent. How much blood needs to leave a body before they wither? I’ve heard more than forty percent—two thousand milliliters, that’s what Bonnie says. My belly starts to distend, filled with Asher. He slides out of me. I flip him around, so I’m on top. I see the fear reflected in his pupils as I bite the other side of his neck, the blood rushing into my mouth so fast, I feel like it’ll pour out of my nostrils. He looks at me, like, why—why me? I tell him that he doesn’t matter, that no one matters anymore. His eyes then ask if I can turn him, like Bonnie turned us, and I tell him no, because I’m not that advanced yet, and I can’t imagine a lifetime with him by my side.
Scarlett and Alina appear. They ask if there’s anything left. I gesture like, I don’t know, you’re welcome to my scraps. “I did this for you,” I say. “And Bonnie.”
They tense up at Bonnie’s name—we all do. That’s Bonnie power. She’s around even when she’s gone. I love them all, but this is only a few months into our new lives together. How will I feel in a year, in twenty, in two hundred?
Asher starts twitching as Scarlett and Alina suck from his wrists. There’s nothing left in his neck anymore—where the blood tastes best, like heat rising, I guess. They stroke his face to calm him down and the life drains from his eyes.
“You did good,” Scarlett says. “He was healthy. Last body we had had cancer, I can tell.”
“What about Bonnie?” I ask, as Alina glances the other way. “There’s nothing for her.”
“We don’t have to tell,” Alina mumbles.
“She already knows,” I say, and can feel her inside of me, burning.
“She can have her pick of anyone on that bonfire,” Scarlett says.
I fold my arms, getting cold, even though temperature no longer affects me. “I couldn’t stop drinking. He tasted so good.”
Alina starts pushing him out to the shore. “That’s because he was your kill. The first bite is always the freshest.”
“Will she be mad?” I ask, as Scarlett helps throw the body into the Pacific. The waves crash and carry Asher away. They’ll find him tomorrow, in a day or two, beaten by the waters, eroded. Friends from the beach will say he went off with some girl. They’ll ask them to describe me, but they’ll be unable. I look like every other girl in a bikini. With my hair covering my face, nothing stands out.
As we walk back to the bonfire, I cover my stomach because it’s gotten bigger. Bonnie will know I’ve fed. The flames have gotten larger, the party wild. Bonnie has that effect. Her energy swirling. The music pumping. Bodies groping. Howling. The moon so close. Bonnie orchestrating like a conductor. She can have her pick. She takes the hand of a girl with doe eyes. She leads her into the passenger’s side of a red Mercedes Benz SL, what Richard Gere drove in American Gigolo. We pile in with the top down, shooting up the highway toward Malibu, “The Killing Moon” by the Bunnymen on the radio, on our pulsing lips.
Bonnie glares into the rearview. “I’m hungry too.”
Ice on my spine. She knows I didn’t save the last body for her. Shame on me.
Back at her house, the girl is given a Quaalude. She lies back on the couch, the vein in her neck throbbing. “This one is all mine,” Bonnie says. She’s a pro at draining, biting all the best entry points that allow for heavy flow. When she’s finished, we help Bonnie drag her down to a huge barrel of lye kept in the basement. We seal her up and get to cocaining.
Somehow drugs still penetrate our non-human brains. We talk fast. We pump Def Leppard—“Photograph” filling up the mansion. We dance around in our bikinis, hugging one another, alive again, if just momentarily.
“You’re greedy,” I hear Bonnie whisper in my ear, as she floats away.
I find her by the lit pool where her parents have installed a neon flamingo with a top hat.
“You feasted tonight,” Bonnie says, and jumps in.
“Yes.” I swallow hard. “The boy.”
Bonnie’s head pops up out of the water. “But you didn’t share.”
I swallow harder. “I shared with Scarlett and Alina.”
“Peons,” she says. “They’d be dead if not for me. The streets aren’t kind to sad homeless girls. I feed first, always, V.”
My first name is Veronica, but she always calls me V.
“I’m sorry.”
She beckons me and I slip into the pool. She swims closer. “How did it feel to choose your first victim?”
“Powerful.”
“That’s right,” she says, and we’re inches apart. Her breath is like metal. “Did I tell you the story of when I was turned?”
She alluded to it before, but never the whole enchilada.
“I was working in Santa Monica Boulevard, recently dropped out of school. Ran away from home out of boredom. This was two years ago. I wanted to escape my body, my ennui. He pulled up in a DeLorean, the car from Back to the Future. The door opened vertically and this man with purple sunglasses called me inside. He had graying hair in a long ponytail. I saw his fangs and thought it a costume. He told me he was a thousand years old and that I reminded him of his first love. We drove to the bluffs and he said he didn’t want to fuck me, which was rare. He asked if I was happy in my life, and I told him if I was happy, I wouldn’t be in his tricked-out car. Tangerine Dream played from his tape deck and he asked if I was poor. I said my parents had more money than they knew what to do with and that because of that, I would drift my entire life until it ended. ‘What if it could never end?’ he asked, and I tilted my neck, like I knew, like I’d been waiting for his ride. He said he turned only a few people during his existence, that I couldn’t expect him to guide me, because he was a troubadour. He’d never stay in one place. He could give me immortality, but I was on my own, and that tasting me might bring him back to his one true love from long, long ago. When he sunk his teeth into my veins, fireworks exploded, an electric charge coursing through my body. I felt like I could crush skulls, wrestle with gods, shoot lightning bolts from my palms. ‘Turn a small army,’ he said. ‘But keep it small. Just for company, because this life in the shadows gets so lonely, as death follows you wherever you go.”
I cry as Bonnie finishes her tale and licks away my tears like a cat.
“I turned Scarlett and Alina early on, because I needed companionship,” Bonnie says. “But you are my true soul sister, V.”
I hug her tight. “Thank you.”
Her lips hover by my ear. “But if you ever drink again without me, I’ll drive a stake through your heart.”
I pull away as she guffaws. She gives me a splash.
“Joking, joking,” she says.
But she isn’t. She wants to keep all of us scared. She’s told each of us the same thing, as a warning. In her arms, we are all her favorite. It’s how she pits us against each other and she remains queen.
We towel off and wander back inside where Scarlett and Alina are dancing to “Tainted Love” by Soft Cell. Alina has taken off her headphones, the drugs reaching full-tilt. She caresses Scarlett’s body and Scarlett lets her, even if she doesn’t swing that way. We no longer have labels like we did in life. We live in the moment because we have a million of them ahead. Bonnie goes to take a shower and I know she’ll be gone for a half an hour, despite the California ordinances warning us about a drought and water shortages. She’s greedy and dislikes abiding by rules. When she’s gone, I join in the seductive dance to “Tainted Love.” The song ends and John Parr’s “Naughty Naughty” comes on. I’m feeling extra naughty and get in between Scarlett and Alina. I take Alina’s face in my hands and kiss her blue lips, my tongue flicking at her uvula. When I let go, she’s mesmerized. Scarlett dances in place, lights a Misty 100 cigarette, watches us writhe.
“I want to talk,” I say, but Alina goes in for another kiss. “No, not now.” I pull away and sit on a couch that Bonnie’s idiot parents bought, shaped like a pair of red lips. Scarlett sits down, crosses her leg, her foot bobbing.
“She talks behind your back,” I say, my spine frozen. I’m testing them. Scarlett’s eyes indicate Alina, but I shake my head.
“Bonnie,” I whisper in her ear.
“Hey,” Alina yells. “What are you whispering about?” She turns down the music and comes over.
“Apparently, V is the new favorite,” Scarlett says, her tone like it’s a joke.
“She called you peons, Scar.”
“What’s a peon?” Alina asks.
Scarlett sucks her cig. “I had one cent to my name when Bonnie found me. Alina had track marks up her arm. Is she wrong?”
“I don’t want to live in fear for the rest of my existence,” I say, as we hear the shower cut off and everyone gets squirmy.
Scarlett blows smoke in my eyes. “You don’t live. So, what’s the issue?”
Bonnie comes out in a pink towel, pattering water all over the marble floors. “It’s still early. Let’s go to The Whale. We’ll be home by sun-up.”
I spy a clock that says one a.m. It’ll be pushing it, but from the way Bonnie looks, there’s no cause for debate.
We zoom in her Benz fifteen minutes later after she throws on a gold metallic lame black velvet prom dress. The Whale is in Hollywood, an A-list spot with a neon-glow vibe. Bonnie has sucked the bouncer’s dick many a times, never crunched down for a kill. When we arrive, she winks at him. He bounces on his heels, and we skip the line of groaning wannabees.
The vibe is laser lights and walls of mirrors. Girls with big hair—rainforests decimated so they can get their precise hold. Guys in white jackets, collars open, blue suede shoes. Noses crusted white, pupils dilated, cheeks rosy red. The music is electric, futuristic, like we’re at an alien ball. Bonnie scopes out her victim, a tall guy who looks like Ric Ocasek, maybe it is. She slips a packet of something into his drink, laughs inanely at whatever he says. “Come with me to the bathroom,” I overhear, and follow them as they leave. Scarlett and Alina stay at the bar.
In the men’s bathroom, I see a stall door swing shut. There’s a guy wearing sunglasses at the mirror, shaping his hair like the Flock of Seagulls’ lead singer. He’s too wrapped up in himself to notice that my reflection doesn’t show. I knock on the stall door and Bonnie opens it with her white boot. She’s curled around the Ric Ocasek lookalike, who’s enraptured.
“The more the merrier,” he says, with a wink-wink.
“Bonnie,” I say, closing the stall door. “The other girls were talking about you.”
“What were they saying?”
I’m feeling extra chaotic tonight. “How they’re tired of you bossing us all around.”
Ric’s eyes bat back and forth between us like a tennis match.
Bonnie mimes yawning. “Let ‘em try being on their own. Who will tuck them in at day like I do?”
“They’re not loyal like I am.”
“Did you hear that?” she tells Ric. “She’s loyal?”
Ric takes a bump off his knuckle. “I’m loyal.”
“You’re lunchmeat.” She unravels from him. “Open a vein, V.” She sits on the toilet and begins filing her nails.
“Can I give you a little love bite?” I ask Ric. He’s too fucked up to care. I kiss his neck that tastes of salt and then crunch down. I don’t know what drugs Bonnie gave him, but he’s like a wet noodle and I have to hold him upright, despite the bump of coke he did. I pull away, wiping his blood from my lips, indicate for Bonnie to take the next slurp.
“We can’t drain him,” she says. “There’s too many witnesses. Besides, I’m full. I only need some dessert.”
She gets off the toilet and sucks his neck as his eyes go back into his skull. After she’s done, we leave him hunched over the stall, a ream of toilet paper wrapped around his neck. At the mirror, I want to see myself, begging for a reflection but it gives me none. Bonnie takes my arm.
“You look fine,” she says, sweeping the hair over my burned side.
“You can’t see it?” I ask, my breath catching in my throat.
“No, you hide your scars well.”
She kisses me on the other cheek, leaving a bloody lipstick stain. “Whoops,” she says, and licks her thumb to wipe it off. Before we leave the bathroom, she stops. “Why did you tell me that about Scarlett and Alina?”
I stare at the floor. “I can be your ears,” I say.
“Hmm. Ears. Do you think I need that?”
I shrug. “Do you think they have ulterior motives?”
Bonnie cackles. “Everyone has ulterior motives.”
“I don’t.”
“Right, V. Just the Good Ship Lollipop, aren’t you?”
We leave the bathroom and find Scarlett and Alina waiting outside, nervous.
“What were you doing in there?” they ask, at the same time.
“There’s a leftover body for you,” Bonnie says. “But keep him alive. Three murders in a night means we’re getting sloppy.”
“What does he taste like?” Alina asks, headphones over her ears to block out the noise of the club, Madonna’s “Live to Tell” humming.
“Deception,” Bonnie says, flicking her hair over her shoulder. “Hurry up in there, I’m ready to leave before the sun cooks us.”
Outside Bonnie and I smoke, the sky turning from midnight black to the cool blue it gets before the sun is a thought again.
“We have about an hour,” I say, looking at my digital watch that displays 5:01 a.m.
Bonnie spits out her smoke. “I like to live on the edge.”
Scarlett wobbles outside, wiping blood from her mouth.
Bonnie tosses her cig and stamps it out with her heel. “Where’s Alina?”
“Still sucking,” Scarlett says.
“She’ll have to find her own way home,” Bonnie says, heading toward the car.
Scarlett and I give each other a look. I say nothing.
“But the sun?” Scarlett says. It’s no more than a peep.
“If Alina can’t respect our time, then I cannot respect her,” Bonnie says. She leaps into the driver’s side of the car without opening the door. Scarlett and I pile in. “Besides, I know she goes to her parents’ house all the time at night and watches their window like a dumb stalker. She’ll find a way home.”
Bonnie guns the gas and there’s no talking back. She flips on the radio to avoid conservation. I can tell she’s seething because she’s sucking on her teeth. “Lucky Star” by Madonna comes on, as if the song is taking Alina’s place. I wonder if my words have consequences, if Bonnie is looking to punish. I would feel bad for Alina if I felt bad about anything anymore. I picture her emerging from The Whale, fresh off dessert, and not seeing us, the Benz nowhere to be found. If she took the bus, she’d never make it home in time, erupting into flames along the highway, listening to “Lucky Star” on her Walkman while she scorched.
Back home, we descend to the basement, the smell of the girl we drained sizzling in the bucket of lye. Bonnie installed four coffins: hers like a Rolls Royce replete with cushions and feathers, ours a plain brown box, hard on our backs. There are no windows in the room, but we still must play it safe without any light trickling through. I imagine the lip of the sun rising already, orange along the horizon. Alina hasn’t returned. We get in our coffins and shut the lids to the day. After a fitful sleep, I open it to the smell of cooked flesh, not the girl in lye, but how it smelled when I woke to my stepfather burning my face with an iron. I push off the coffin’s lid and Alina stands there, her skin red and boiling like a lobster in a pot of steaming water. Flesh spools off, thick like molasses. Somehow, she still has a Walkman over her ears and “Borderline” plays. I feel like I’m going to lose my mind.
“You left me,” she says, an accusation.
“But Bonnie told us—”
“Bullshit,” Alina roars, her anger echoing. “You sold me out. You’re a fucking bitch, V.”
I’ve never heard her curse before. She barely speaks. She bares her teeth, fangs sharp. Her chin loosens and falls to the marble floor. Enraged, she attacks. Long fingernails claw at my eyes. She’s tiny but strong, throwing me to the ground, snarling over me like a rabid dog.
“I don’t know what your game is, but things were better before you came around. You’re an infection.”
She’s sobbing, crying blood because we no longer hold salt and water. Only red expels from our orifices. Alina’s Walkman flies off of her, “Borderline” switching to “Open Your Heart.” I see her heart beating wildly, a lump of pumping flesh. I push Alina off of me.
Bonnie’s coffin opens as she emerges like a dark angel. She holds a wooden stake.
“V,” she says, tossing me the stake.
Alina lunges, mouth wide open and I plunge the stake into her heart. She lets out a cry that turns my stomach, roils what’s already rotten and spoiled in me. The veins around her heart pulse like fat worms, spread across her body until they erupt. She explodes all over me like ninety pounds of hot soup. I can’t see because bits of steaming Alina have stuck in my eyes. When I wipe it away, Bonnie is there, arms outstretched, ready to comfort.
“We did what we had to do,” she says, as I cry blood on her shoulder.
Scarlett watches from her coffin in shock.
I’ve killed Alina. I put the bug in Bonnie’s ear that set it all in motion.
I am more powerful than I ever thought.
No one wants to clean up the mess, so Bonnie gets on the phone and calls a service that will clean with no questions asked. We can go to the mall and when we return, every trace of Alina will be gone.
In the Benz, I ride shotgun, Scarlett regulated to the backseat. Bonnie and I do blow and cackle at the rushing wind, speeding down the highway. The mall is an overload for our senses. We steer away from the Food Court so we don’t barf and sit by the fountain, doing our nails. Bonnie does mine hot pink and I do hers canary yellow. I know Scarlett is seething because she and Alina were a duo, and now she’s on an island.
But I have bigger plans than Scarlett.
I spy a boy catching my eye who looks like a melancholy Tom Cruise. He’s with some bimbo, but she’s not interesting enough to hold his attention. I cull him to leave her, and he comes my way. I tell Bonnie we should feast after the workout we had and she agrees. There’s a janitor closet to our right, the door ajar, and I slip inside. I turn on the light surrounded by cleaning supplies. It’s filthy and romantic. A knock raps on the door and the boy follows inside.
“I don’t know why I’m here,” he says, rubbing his forehead. “I’m Kevin.”
I’ve never culled someone so smoothly before. It must be because I’ve become more powerful.
“I’m V,” I say, no longer Veronica, no longer the sad goth girl who ate lunch by herself, who the boys shot spitballs at while the girls made fun of her burns, who only dressed in black, already blending with the night, who destroyed anyone who ever tried to get close, even my one boyfriend, a shy kid named Curt who painted murals of skulls devouring one another, who I dared to walk along the tracks while an incoming train peeped in the distance, a girl who just wanted to be thrilled by something.
“Hi, V,” melancholy Tom Cruise says.
I pull my hair back in a ponytail so my wounds show.
“This is me, for eternity,” I say. “Can you handle it?”
I leap on him before he can answer, biting into his sweet neck. Blood gushes like a faucet as I drink him deep. He collapses to the ground as Bonnie and Scarlett enter. They attack from other sides until we drain him completely. We fold his withered body up in the corner and leave, wiping our lips.
“That was a virgin,” Bonnie says. Cyndi Lauper plays from overhead speakers. “The blood is so clean, so pure.”
Scarlett breaks down in tears, covering her face. “I’m sorry,” she says, but won’t look at us.
Bonnie bites her cheek. “Don’t get weak on me, Scar.”
Scarlett peeks through her fingers. “We’re all we have, right? We’re a family, right?”
Bonnie throws up her hands. “Alina didn’t listen. She knew it was time to leave the club. Besides, a trio is more manageable.”
“Then why’d you turn her?”
Scarlett’s eyes burn at me. I bare my teeth.
“V just brought us a feast. When was your last kill?”
“I…”
Bonnie sings to the Cyndi Lauper song, “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.” She dances around, sparkling. I join in, screeching the words. I take her in my arms and dip her.
“I allowed you into this party, Scarlett,” she says. “Don’t be a pooper.”
Scarlett’s face has become all bloody from crying.
“Go wash up in the bathroom,” Bonnie says. “You look like Carrie from the movie.”
Scarlett touches her face, seeing the blood on her hands. She rushes off to the bathroom.
Bonnie turns to me, her gaze wild. “Let’s leave her too.”
“It’s not that late,” I say. “She’ll find a way to make it back before the sun.”
Bonnie primps her hair. “Who said I want her scorched? You aiming to take us all out?”
“No, I…”
Bonnie grabs my hand, and we run out of the mall. We’re laughing and high, and I want to find the special drugs that Bonnie uses to knock guys out, and use them on her.
In the Benz, we turn on the radio and New Order’s “Blue Monday” plays.
“Are we really gonna leave her?” I ask, and Bonnie shakes her head.
“I just wanna scare her. Sometimes, you all need to be put in your place.”
Once the song ends, Scarlett wanders out, her sleeves covering her hands, whittled down.
“I thought you left,” she murmurs, getting in the back.
“Never, love,” Bonnie says, but she bites those words. We speed back at a hundred miles per hour. I’m watching Scarlett in the rearview—I’m telling her I’m on her side as much as I telepathically can. An eternity with Scarlett wouldn’t be so bad. She keeps to herself, but also knows how to start a party. We could rule the beaches as a duo—Bonnie a forgotten memory.
Back at the house, Bonnie goes in for her nightly shower before daybreak.
Scarlett sits on the lip couch, head in hands.
“I really thought you left, like with Alina,” she says. “Fuck… Alina she didn’t deserve to go out like that.”
I chew on my lip, dots of blood on my tongue. “None of us are safe.”
We listen to the water trickling from the shower in the bathroom, Bonnie singing “I Need a Hero” off-key.
“If she can toss away Alina that easily…” I say.
Scarlett stands and goes to the stereo system. She puts in a Tangerine Dream cassette. She wants the music to drown out our duplicity.
“I’ve been thinking,” Scarlett says, her fingers gliding across Bonnie’s massive tape collection. “What do we need her for? You’re capable of a kill now, I’m adept.” She dances in a slinky way, dressed in red gloves and a maxi dress, looking like a rockstar.
I dance toward her, unsure if I’m being culled, if Scarlett has that kind of power.
“Or will you run and blab to mommy?” Scarlett says. I put my hands on her waist as we groove. “Like you did with Alina.”
My hands freeze. “I was seeing how much sway I had with Bonnie.”
We stop, listen to hear if the water’s running, making sure we’re safe.
“Do you know where she hides her special drugs?” I ask, my breath hot.
Scarlett doesn’t answer right away, finally breaks from our dance, beckons me up the stairs to Bonnie’s childhood room replete with Shelia E. posters and dolls on her bed that judge. Scarlett opens a ballerina music box to reveal a thick baggie filled with white powder.
“It’s not coke,” Scarlett says. “Knocks you out within ten minutes.”
I squeeze the baggie. “Even us Vamps?”
“She’s done it to me before. Once as a cruel joke. Left me asleep buckled in her car as the sun rose and she cackled like a witch from the house. I managed to free myself in time before I burned.”
My eyes sparkled. “What if we did that to her?”
Scarlett shrugged. “Don’t know if it would work. I mean she’d go down, but whether she stays down.”
“We use something stronger than a seatbelt.”
I leave the room with the bag, on a mission. Scarlett catches up with me at the foot of the stairs.
“V,” she says, one delicate red tear trickling down her cheek.
“Scar,” I say. “If we don’t, we’ll be beholden to her forever. This mansion could be ours. If her parents return, we’ll drain them. I promise to treat you with kindness for eternity, never make you feel small like she does.”
“I love her.”
I hug Scarlett, as she sobs on my shoulder. “I do too, but it’s only a matter of time before she grows tired of us. And three’s a crowd anyway. We do it tonight. Pretend its cocaine and get her so fucked up, then find a way to tie her down in the car, so she can’t escape.”
Scarlett’s teeth chatter. “She’s strong.”
“So are we. More than we think. We can do this.”
Scarlett nods, a slight tilt of her chin. The door is ajar. I will swing it fully open. We head down the stairs, Scarlett’s hands trembling, so I take them in my own, as we walk side by side. I spy a trail of wet footprints, Bonnie emerged from her cleanse. She stands by the stereo, a towel tied tight at her breasts, hair slicked back like a girl in a Robert Palmer video. She’s changed the Tangerine Dream cassette to Duran Duran’s “A View to a Kill.”
“I want to party,” I say, flashing my pearly whites, my smile so big like in a cartoon. “We’ve had some epic kills these past few nights. We deserve it. I swiped some blow from that last drain in the janitor’s closet.”
I go over to the glass coffee table in the middle of the room and dump out a few lines. I always keep my own stash on hand, and with my back to Bonnie, I make sure that the biggest line is the bad drugs, since I know she’ll always go for the biggest line. Bonnie sits on the lip couch, crosses one leg over the other, bobs her foot, her toenails painted purple.
“I was thinking in the shower…” she says, pawing at her hair, giving it life. “You girls have had it pretty easy. My mansion. My drugs. My music. My pool. My designer clothes. What have you given me in return?”
“What do you want?” I ask. “Here I brought you drugs.”
“Oh yes, thank you, V, for some shitty coke you yoinked off some tool. No, things are going to need to change around here, if you want to maintain this style of death.”
I hear Scarlett audibly swallow. Bonnie’s ear picks up on it too. She stands and walks over to Scarlett, plays with her hair.
“Alina wasn’t alone in talking behind my back.”
Scarlett gasps. “I never agreed with what she said.”
“But you didn’t tell me like V did. You stayed silent while a rat scurried.”
“I…I didn’t know what to do!”
“Stop sniveling, Scarlett.” She smooths down Scarlett’s hair before giving it a yank, causing Scarlett to moan. “Kiss my foot.”
“What?”
“Kiss. My. Foot.”
Bonnie pushes Scarlett down until Scarlett’s on her knees. She stands on one leg, her big purple painted toenail hovering toward Scarlett’s lips.
“Bonnie…”
“Hush you. Hush.”
Bonnie sticks her toe in Scarlett’s mouth until the girl’s gagging. She pulls away, triumphant.
“I think I will do a line,” Bonnie says, crossing over to the glass table. With her hands on hips, she observes the three lines, one fatter and longer than the rest. She hoovers it up her nose and then turns up the music for the end of “View to a Kill.” I’ve never hated anyone so much while also being in such awe.
Scarlett wipes Bonnie’s toe funk off her lips, but manages a tight Mona Lisa smile. I wave her over so we can do the other lines, before Bonnie gets suspicious. With our noses against the glass, Scarlett seems wary. She could be wondering if I’ve given her some of the bad drugs too. I blow her a kiss to let her know I’m on her side. She shrugs, almost as if she’s accepted either fate, and does a line. When I hoover up my own, my muscles tighten, my brain sharpens.
I’m Supergirl.
Bonnie switches the music to Don Henley’s “Boys of Summer.” My summer under Bonnie’s thumb is finally ending. I left my home in the spring, cursing out my vile mother with just a small backpack filled with lipstick, a change of clothes, and some bills I found in her pantyhose drawer. Her and her rotating round of abusers would never be a part of my existence again. I vowed never to be hurt by someone I thought I loved. For days, I slept on the beach until I had a sand tan, grubby and smelling of the ocean and salt. I used to think that Bonnie culled me to her that night we crossed paths, but maybe I drew her to me. Made her turn me dead because it was my destiny all along.
Dancing to “Boys of Summer,” Bonnie flings off her towel, naked and glistening. This will be her last dance, and I let her become absorbed in the music, lost to the world. Scarlett sways beside her, glum as ever, unsure how she wants this to play out. But I know. I will roast this bitch in the sun and then climb into her Rolls Royce of a coffin. Her biggest mistake was ever thinking I’m a confidant.
An hour later, Bonnie’s still dancing—Oingo Boingo now, and Scarlett and I are getting tired. It doesn’t seem like the special drugs are working. Maybe I am fated to stay forever squashed by Bonnie. Maybe that’s what I deserve for my sins.
And then, in the middle of an attempted pirouette, Bonnie goes down hard, her face colliding with the marble floor. Her white ass poking up in the air. Scarlett twitches, her nerves frayed, but I investigate. I lean down, lying on the floor until I’m in line with Bonnie. Her pretty eyes have closed. I’d check for her breathing, but none of us breathe anymore. I poke her naked thigh and she doesn’t move.
“Get the ropes,” I tell Scarlett. Once, I found a closet on the second floor filled with dungeon attire. Ropes for Shibari, Japanese bondage for when her parents got bored. I stay by Bonnie while Scarlett returns with ropes around her arms. Bonnie’s too heavy to pick up, so we drag her naked ass body to the Benz. The sun is flirting with rising, an orange kiss along the Hollywood Hills. We need to work fast. We position Bonnie in the driver’s seat, buckling her in and tying her to the steering wheel and to the back of her seat. We spend a half an hour tying each of limbs until she looks like a preserved specimen in a museum. My skin tingles as the sun continues its ascent. The sky now purple. I look at my watch and see that it’s 5:42 AM, only a few more minutes until we’re all cooked.
Scarlett wipes her forehead, assesses our work. “I don’t think we could even untie her in time if we tried.”
“Then the die is cast,” I say, and kiss Scarlett on the cheek leaving a big lipstick stain in the shape of my lips like a tattoo.
“What do we do now?” she asks.
“There’s nothing left to do.”
We head back inside. I turn off the blasting music. I can smell the sun coming, the heat sizzling my nostrils. I look back through the glass doors leading to where the car is parked, Bonnie tied down, peaceful as ever. She is mortal, fallible, but memorable, I’ll give her that.
“Let’s get to the basement,” I say, and we descend.
In our coffins, we say goodnight to one another. I can hear Scarlett softly weeping. But I’m not crying. I’m more alive than I’ve been in a while.
In the dark, I wake to the sound of shattering glass. I raise the lid, as does Scarlett. We hear stomping up above.
“Fuck,” I say, as the door to the basement opens and Bonnie blazes inside like a beautiful bonfire, screeching like a banshee. Scarlett screams, diving back in her coffin, and closing the lid. I was already sleeping in Bonnie’s Rolls Royce, replete with a wooden stake at the ready. Bonnie thrashes around, flames shooting from her fingertips, a phoenix.
“V,” she growls, before leaping upon me, as we roll around on the floor, my palms seared from her touch. She breathes fire like a dragon, but I grip the wooden stake and plunge it into her soul. Her growl becomes a fierce cry as all the blood of everyone she’s sucked gushes out, this withered wench writhing over me, cursing my name, damning my very being, warning me that she’ll see me in Hell.
I welcome the reunion.
She leaps back, a swirl of flames, her struggle looking like a dance.
“I loved you,” she says, through red tears spurting like a shower head. I take her in my arms, not caring that she’s hot to the touch, that my skin starts to blister. I give her a fiery kiss off and then plunge the stake even further until she explodes, bright as a supernova.
The lid to Scarlett’s coffin opens and she peers out.
“It’s done,” I say, covered in Bonnie’s gunk. I can’t shower because I can’t go up to the bathroom until the sun sets.
Scarlett runs over and hugs me. “Thank you,” she says, but I don’t want to hear it. I debated giving her a line of the bad drugs, but ultimately decided against it. I think she’s surprised that I didn’t strike.
Once the sun sets, we call the cleaning service to scrape away the last bits of Bonnie. We take a shower together, washing away any traces of her that have lingered. We towel up and find our way to the living room where last night’s party reigns in all of its debauchery. The front door opens and Bonnie’s parents enter with designer suitcases in tow.
“What’s going on here?” the mother squawks.
I slink up to them, let the dad ogle my body, while the mother cuts him with her eyes.
“Your vampire daughter exploded downstairs,” I say, purring. “And a new queen has taken the throne.”
Then I slit their throats and drink them dry, more powerful than ever with a bevy of fresh kills notched on my belt. I leave Scarlett any leftovers that she feeds on like a stray dog.
With a bloody mustache, I dance over to the stereo system and turn on “Enjoy the Silence” by Depeche Mode. Scarlett watches, lips trembling at my ascent. I spread my wings, mouthing the words as Bonnie’s parents twitch from rigor mortis. I’m a monster. I exist for my own pleasure and nothing else. I feed. I feed. I feed. All I’ve ever wanted is here in my arms. To cross me is to be mistaken. I’ll drain up and down the beaches of L.A. for the rest of time.
Maybe I’ll keep Scarlett by my side, or maybe I’ll tire of her too, and leave her in the sun. For I don’t truly need anyone, ever again.
And that is a gift.
Follow and Connect with Lee Matthew Goldberg
About
Lee Matthew Goldberg is the Anthony, Lefty, and Prix du Polar nominated author of sixteen novels including THE ANCESTOR and THE MENTOR, and THE GREAT GIMMELMANS. After graduating with an MFA from the New School, he’s been published in multiple languages and his writing has also appeared as a contributor in CrimeReads, Pipeline Artists, LitHub, Chicago Quarterly Review, Electric Literature, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Vol. 1 Brooklyn and others. He is the publisher of Fringe Press and lives in New York City. Follow him at LeeMatthewGoldberg.com
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