Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 122030 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122030 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
And they were just neighbors. Ones I’d help if their well went dry or their truck slipped off the side of the road in the winter. They’d come pick my apples from the orchard and I’d find bushels of corn or beans left on my front porch each fall.
I complain about my life a lot, but there’s a huge advantage to living so long as a young person. And that’s… people. I know everyone and they know me.
Home isn’t even a good enough word for my West Virginia hilltop.
It’s the only Heaven I’ll ever know.
So that’s how I thank Syrsee for her help, and her trust, and her blood, and… just for being her and taking this stupid ride with me.
I make it her Heaven too.
At least for now.
CHAPTER FORTY – SYRSEE
Hollers and hound dogs.
Ryet talks a lot for those first few hours of driving, telling me things the way… well, the way a man might tell a woman on a first date. He describes his house, and his land, and the people he considers his only family.
I want to ask about Jane—because he mentioned her when he was telling me this new story of his life—but I don’t. I get the feeling that something has changed. That his bond with her has been bruised somehow, or maybe even broken.
I’m pretty sure it has something to do with his transformation—which seems to be in some kind of arrested state—but I can’t find a polite way to push the issue without coming off as needy and desperate.
But I am needy and desperate. Because he doesn’t feed on me again. It’s been almost two days and it’s driving me crazy wondering what happens to me when he no longer needs my blood.
I’m going so insane with these insecurities by the time he clears his throat and asks, very politely, if he could just have a few sips after we cross into West Virginia that I let out such an obvious breath of relief, even he can’t miss it.
But he does misinterpret it. “It’s OK. I can go a little longer.”
“No.” He thinks I’m upset that he wants to feed. “That’s not it.”
“Then what’s wrong? You look kinda distressed. You’ve looked that way for a couple hundred miles now. If you don’t want to come to my house—”
“I’m just—” And I’m about to tell him the truth. I’m about to let it all spill out. That I’m becoming as addicted to his teeth in my neck as he is my blood and I’m so uncertain about who I am to him—friend, girlfriend, Happy Meal?—and I so, so, so want to be the middle one. Which is weird too. Because wasn’t I just kicking myself two days ago because I didn’t dump him in a ditch to die?
But everything about this admission is just too much, even for me. So I correct him. Rather, misdirect him. “It’s just… I’ve got this serial-killer gig going and—”
His laugh is immediate and his smile is broad. He shows me his new teeth, but in a different way than before.
I don’t really have a comeback after that first opener, and he almost misses a turn onto a lane that really doesn’t look wide enough to accommodate this truck, so that’s as far as the banter gets.
He takes the turn wide, flattens a sapling as he angles into the dirt road, and then straightens us out. It’s so narrow that the bare branches are slapping against the sides of the truck as we slowly meander our way forward.
He picks up our conversation in a new place. “This is called a holler.”
“What is?”
“The road.”
“Why? Does it talk back?”
He’s still smiling from my serial killer remark, but even though my new joke is dumb, his smile doesn’t wear off. “It’s just what we call them here.”
And now I smile as well. We. I like that word. Even though he’s not talking about me in that we, I still like it. Because it feels… like he’s part of something. Something that isn’t the vampire Paul. And he’s inviting me into this something.
He’s… including me.
And even though I’m still a little insecure about how much longer he will feed on me—how much longer he will absolutely, positively need me—I kinda push it down and try to live in the moment.
Because it’s a pretty good one.
“We live at the end of the holler.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. So if you live at the mouth of the holler—that’s the top, where we came in—then you’re in charge of the info that comes down the holler.”
“Hmm.” I think about this as we pass a run-down old farmhouse. Several large hound dogs come bumbling out into the road, baying at us like we’re raccoons. “Can you give me an example, please? I’m having a hard time following.”
“Sure.” We’re only inching forward now because the hounds are doing their best to get run over and Ryet is doing his best not to do that. “Let’s see. Someone enters the road in a truck the people in the house at the mouth have never seen before. Dogs start barking, slowing the truck down a little. This gives the people who live in the mouth house time to get on the horn—” He looks me in the eyes for this next part. “Folks still have landlines here. They get on the horn and call the neighbor next door so they know there’s a stranger comin’. Can you guess where this is going?”