A White Trash Vampire, Part Three
To read Part One and an explanation of this story, go here.
Runt rubbed her sore stomach and glared at Stella Mae. “Why are you here?”
“I want somebody to talk to.” Stella Mae stretched out on the bed and sighed luxuriously.
“Why don’t you hang out with your sister?”
“She’s in trouble. Mama found her Spice Girls magazine and made her eat the whole thing. Even the perfume cards. Amber Sue’s been out on the toilet for an hour.”
Runt shoved Stella Mae off the bed and straightened the covers. “So the Spice Girls are sinful, too?”
Stella Mae frowned. “Just about everything is.” She ran her finger across a stack of paperbacks. “Have you read all these? You got any about vampires?”
“Why? Since you are one, don’t you know everything already?”
Stella Mae shook her head sadly. “Runt, you just don’t know as much as you think you do. One day you’ll accept that Stella Mae Wilder is a vampire.”
“And one day you’ll accept that I don’t want you over here bothering me all the time.”
“Why not? You don’t have any friends, either.”
She didn’t, thanks largely to Stella Mae, who insisted on telling everyone at school that her and Runt were best friends. The first day of junior high, Runt had walked into the cafeteria with a stiff smile plastered over her face and beads of sweat itching her armpits. She’d just spotted a table with a few girls who looked nice when she heard her name shouted from across the room.
“Hey Runt, over here! Ruuuunt!” Stella Mae stood on her chair in her black skirt and huge Jesus is Lord! sweatshirt, frantically waving her jelly sandwich. Sheila Ryan walked past Runt and snickered. “That must be the white trash table.”
Runt dropped her tray onto the nearest table and fled, giggles chasing behind her. She spent every lunch hour in the library after that. Just thinking about it still made her cheeks burn.
She grabbed her comb and tugged it through the snarls in her hair. “I don’t need any friends.”
“I could make you a vampire,” Stella Mae offered. “Then we could rule the night and nobody could mess with us.”
Runt could imagine the adventures Stella Mae had thought up in that weird little head of hers, consisting of the two of them roving the countryside like a pair of wild dogs. “No thanks.”
“Can I brush your hair? I’m good at not pulling the tangles.”
“No.”
“Want to spend the night at my house? We can sleep on the porch and take a walk in the middle of the night to see the stars. It’s fun.”
“No.”
Stella Mae pouted. “Don’t forget, you promised you’d stay over one night this summer. Remember?”
Runt had, more than three months ago, just to get Stella Mae to stop following her in the hallways after every class. She should have known Stella Mae wouldn’t forget. “I have to stay with my mom. She’s sick.”
Stella Mae rolled her eyes. “She’s not sick. She’s just drunk. Everybody knows that.”
Heat boiled up in Runt’s chest and she flew at Stella Mae, her hand raised to smack her. She wanted to hit her hard, right across the face, until a red handprint swelled up there. Stella Mae stumbled backwards and ducked to the ground, shielding her head with her arms. It all happened in less than a second. Runt stared at Stella Mae cowering in front of her. She slowly lowered her hand and stepped back.
Stella Mae peeked up cautiously at her, then stomped over to the window, her face white except for two spots of warm pink in her cheeks. She crawled out the window, and for the first time since Runt had ever known her, left without a word.
Runt pulled the curtains shut. Shame tickled her stomach, which made her angrier. How dare Stella Mae Wilder talk bad about Runt’s mother, when Stella Mae’s was the worst in town, probably in the whole state? Runt’s mother didn’t hit her daughter or make her pass out pamphlets at strange people’s houses. Runt’s mother didn’t scream out Praise Jesus! in the middle of the grocery store for no reason and make her daughter want to crawl under the cart. Runt’s mother didn’t almost let her daughter bleed to death in front of a church full of people. No, it was Stella Mae’s mother who did all those things, and worse.
Runt paced around her room, savagely punching her pillow. Stella Mae Wilder was a jerk. A stupid, crazy freak. A stupid, crazy freak who Runt would never talk to again. Ever. She dropped onto her bed, hot and tired. Her head pounding, she searched her pillow for a cool spot. She stared at the ceiling as the light filtering through the curtains changed from pale blue to dark gray. A snatch of a hymn from across the street floated in with the night breeze, Stella Mae’s reedy soprano noticeably missing. Runt pulled the covers up over her ears.
…..
She slept fitfully on and off all night, twisting the sheets into ropes around her legs. She awoke to a soft caress on her forehead. “Mom?” Runt sat up but nobody else was in the room. A cool puff of early morning air billowed the curtains and tickled her skin. Dim shadows pooled in the corners. She kicked off the tangled sheets when she heard a chair scrape against the kitchen floor.
She opened her door and crept into the kitchen. Her mother sat in the same chair, staring into the same ashtray.
Runt reached out slowly to stroke her mother’s hair, rough beneath her fingers. “Mom, I think maybe–”
“Damn it!” Her mother swung around, eyes blazing. Beer arced out of the can she held and splashed over Runt. “Just get out of my face for a change!” She turned back to the table and lit a cigarette with shaking fingers.
Runt stared at her mother’s back, beer dripping from her hair and into her eyes. Her mother muttered something that sounded like “Pain in the ass.”
Runt left the house and walked like a sleepwalker, barely aware of the rocks and pinecones digging into the soles of her feet. Legs aching, she finally stumbled into a clearing and sank down beside a large tree. She pulled her knees up to her chest and hugged herself tightly but she couldn’t stop trembling. She sucked huge gulps of air into her flattened lungs.
Shoes scuffed against the ground behind her. “Hi, Runt. I can see your underwear.”
Runt rested her head on her knees and stared at the damp grass. A muddy boot slid into view as Stella Mae sat beside her. “This is for you. It’ll make you better.”
Runt slowly raised her head. Stella Mae held out a glass filled with a red liquid. The corners of her mouth were stained with the same color. Runt took the slippery glass and sniffed the contents cautiously. “It’s cherry Kool-Aid.”
“No, it’s good blood. Go on.”
Runt sighed, but tilted the glass against her lips. The drink’s sweet coldness numbed her throat and eased the pain in her chest. Slowly, the trembles faded away. She handed the glass back to Stella Mae. Stella Mae smiled and gazed up at the sky, where the silver dawn was melting to an apple green. “Good blood always works.”
Runt leaned back against the tree trunk, and with Stella Mae’s arm warm against her own, watched the sun come up.
THE END.
Happy October!
Instant Del.icio.us Bookmark This - 
|
| RSS for this post's categories: ">Primitive Rubbish People
This entry was posted
on Friday, October 21st, 2005 at 11:38 pm and is filed under .
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response.
Trackback:
