Bite Me (4 page)

The patient shut his eyes “Forgive me. This brings back memories.”
“I agree.” Then the point sank in, the needle filling up with blood more black than it had a right to be. When Nat had a decent amount, he laid it down on a small hot plate. “Have to keep it warm or else it’ll solidify.”
Dad’s hand was clutching his neck, covering the bleeding jab. “It’s so dark.”
“Yes.” Nat got a box of band-aids and took them out, holding them like a deck of cards. “Would you like plain peach, stripes, polka dots, or Winnie-the-Pooh?”
“Just plain.” He stared at the red palm for a moment, then stole an apologetic look at me before he licked it.
“I think Winnie-the-Pooh suits you better. Let’s see about your reflexes.”

It would take a few days for us to get the analysis results. Usually this sort of thing would take longer, but Nat said we were first priority. Good-guy vampire solidarity, I guess. Meanwhile, Dad continued getting up later and later and getting more aches and pains. Mom had gone into overprotective mode, warming up blood for him and forcing him to drink it. I stayed healthy and kept smiling, but felt increasingly blue.

Feeling abandoned by everyone else was no picnic either. Taylor remained loyal, but that didn’t help during classes. When we had to pick lab partners in Physics, I was the odd one out. The sinking sensation you get when you look around and see that nobody wants you, and that the two people forced to work with you are resenting it all the while, became entirely too common.

“Do things get any easier next year?” I asked my eleventh grade friend one day on the late bus. My detention time had been duly served, so I went back to track on Tuesdays and Thursdays. That day we had to high jump, which left me disgruntled and bruised. I didn’t like any sport with complicated technique. It’s hard to mess up when running. That weekend I’d had a couple of races, but Dad was in no shape to even think about sitting in the sun. At least I got third place in the four hundred meter dash.

“Okay, it doesn’t get easier. I was talking social life, though. Are people still going to be so mean and clique-ish next year? Or is it cliqueoriented? Clique-y?” Now I was babbling. “I’m starting to get desperate for company.”

She agreed with a sigh. “So many people here are just terrible, aren’t they? It’s that way everywhere. You’re a nice girl, Dianne–at least in actions if not always in words. You’re smart, and work hard at your strengths, and love your parents. It logically follows that you don’t stand a chance.”

I gave her a sort of shoulder squeeze, not wanting to make her come into full contact with my icky, sweaty self. She was the only friend I could hug, and might soon become my only friend at all. “I’m so glad I have you to talk to.”

“I’m hearing ya. I wouldn’t know what to do these days without you, Art, and Joy.” Those were her two best friends in the junior class.
When we reached Common Lane, I saw a moving van pulling into our block. Could someone finally be moving into 7760? Taylor elected to leave the residents alone so they could settle in, but my curiosity wasn’t patient enough for that. Dodging the movers maneuvering furniture into the end house, I went over to the side yard where I thought I’d seen someone.
A teenage boy was there, leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets. He was about my height and was neither skinny nor fat; just medium. Dark eyes just teetering on the edge of being black and sandy almost-but-not-quite-blond hair made a striking contrast. He was staring into space, unaware of my approach. I suddenly became conscious of the rips in my jeans and the stains on my shirt, and wanted to take my relatively clean sweater back out of my bag.
This is silly
, I thought, putting on a friendly smile. “Hi. My name’s Dianne and I live next door. Are you moving in?” Urgh. Could I sound any lamer?
He smiled back. “Yeah. Nice of you to come over. My parents are in the house, and my little brothers are still with my grandparents for a few days. I’m Matt. The last name is Spiralli and please don’t make any jokes about spirals.”
“Don’t worry. My last name is Anghel, so people keep pronouncing it ‘Angel’ and teasing me about that.”
“Dianne Anghel. Cool. I would say I’m pleased to meet you, but I’m still reeling from the move. I’m supposed to start going to Laconia High tomorrow.”
“That’s my school. If you’re in my grade I can show you around.”
“I’m in tenth grade.”
I restrained the impulse to shout, “Yippee! Prospect of friend! Someone who at least will talk to me for one day!” Instead, I said, “Me too. You better have a guide or the popular crowd will eat you alive.”
“That bad?”
“I don’t want to scare you away. Mainly it’s that I’m not in their good graces, which makes them scarier. Or should I be telling you this?”
“It’s okay. I never was popular myself. Thanks for the offer. I guess I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
“Okay. Um, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Now that I’m done sounding like an idiot. . .”
Matthew laughed. “You don’t.”
When I went in, Dad was lying on the couch, listening to a Coldplay CD. “I’m glad to see you cheerful again,” he murmured. “What’s the occasion?”
“We have neigh-ay-bors on the other side no-ow,” I sang as nicely as I could. Which isn’t very melodious, but oh well.
Mom came home soon after I did. She actually could’ve given me a ride, but I had wanted to see Taylor, so we went home separately. In the morning, she had been coughing a little; now she was coughing uncontrollably. My parents shared the couch while I juggled homework and getting cough syrup and drinks for Mom.
“Aren’t you worried about being contagious, Dad?” I noticed that he was curled up next to his dozing wife, who was drowsy from the medicine. It was kind of sweet.
“I haven’t been infected or passed on anything for eighteen years,” he replied. “Whatever I have now, I’m sure she won’t be affected.”
That night I awoke from my recurring nightmare about the neighborhood setting up a factory for silver bullets and wooden stakes. I stumbled over to the bathroom, only to find the door locked. “Is someone in there?”
The toilet flushed, and a dry, choking, “Yes. . .” came.
“Mom?”
“Di, honey, I don’t think I can go to school tomorrow. Can you use the bathroom downstairs?”
I didn’t know what to say, and dragged my feet away sadly. True to her prediction, Mom called in sick the next morning, and I rode the bus to school. I spotted Matt and went to sit by him.
“Morning. I’m supposed to go see the sophomore counselor first thing. Do you know where their office is?”
“She’s not coming today.”
He looked at me funny. “How do you know?”
“She’s my mom.”
“Wait. . . does that mean she told you to be nice to me?”
“Not at all! She tried a couple times to have me help out new students but gave up. Fortunately you’re not a jerk like the other newbies were.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment. So what’s happened today?”
“She’s sick.”
“Has this been going on for a while? You sound like you really regret it.” Matt must’ve been a perceptive guy. I realized that my leg was nearly touching his and jerked it away.
“It’s nothing.”
“C’mon, Dianne.” My God, he had the nicest nose. Where do noses like that come from?
I played with my fingers for a moment before answering. “It’s just that Dad’s got something too, and we don’t know what it is. Both parents down.”
“Mmm. I’d be upset too. I’m sure you’ll be a great help to them. Can I show you something?” I decided I liked his hands as well. Lovely fingers. When I nodded, he did a funny whirly thing with his palms, spinning them around without tangling the wrists.
I chuckled despite my worry, and wondered if he was showing off to impress me. “Cute.”
“Do you want to learn how?”
My attempts at the trick were hopeless but fun. It turned out we had several classes together. I took him to each one. He made some efforts to chat with other people, with varying levels of success. Most exchanged pleasantries, a very few extended the conversation farther, and I could’ve sworn I heard a couple of statements to the effect of, “Ew, why are you talking to her?”
The result was that I saw a lot of my new friend that day. I learned that he had five siblings, one of whom was married and the other in college. The other three were elementary-school brothers. Also, Matt played hockey and the violin (not simultaneously) enjoyed messing with digital photography, and had a pet tarantula named Shelob. All of the details enamored me. Talking to him was the best experience I’d had a long time.
“Matt didn’t seem upset at all about being snubbed,” I said when I got home. “He was really, really nice to me. He’s so cool.”
Sipping her tea, Mom said, “I’m glad you had a nice day. I’ll talk to him tomorrow.” She was in bed, sitting up in a mound of fluffiness. A bunch of books lay strewn on the floor beside her, along with a remote control.
“Are you going back to work?” I was skeptical, as she still looked pretty flushed and hadn’t eaten anything since the night before.
“Yes. I’ll be honest that I’m not exactly at the peak of heartiness, but work just piles up and I couldn’t afford to lose any more time. I should be better for the day’s rest.” The telephone rang. I automatically started, but Mom touched my arm. “I’d rather you stayed with me. Dad can get it.”
“Isn’t he mowing the lawn?
“He has good ears. Tell me more about your day.” She lay back.
“Well, in Spanish, the teacher had our projects to return to us. The problem was she stacked them too high. First they swayed this way, then that–” I mimed it with my hands. “They actually did fall, but she caught them. Then when she managed to put them on her desk and moved to give Greg his, she tripped on the power cord and fell forward, knocking the big mobile over.”
Mom laughed appreciatively, maybe more than the story deserved. It was pleasant to see her cheerful though, since she had been glum for weeks now. Maybe things would get better.
Or maybe not. At that very moment Dad burst in, holding a cordless phone from downstairs in one hand, a pair of pruning shears still in the other. His eyes looked hunted. And when Dad was scared, I tended to panic.
“Selene, they want to talk to you,” he whispered, handing it to her.
Her eyes widened as she took it. “What? What is it?”
Instead of answering, he said, “Dianne, I think you should go to your room.”
“But–”
A show of fangs and a growl met my protest.
“Okay, okay.” I left, but picked up the upstairs phone in the hall. Eavesdropping: there’s nothing like it. Keeping my breathing down, I took the (also cordless) phone into my bedroom.
First it was Mom’s shaken voice. “. . . there most be some mistake.”
“No, Mrs. Anghel.” After a second, I recognized the voice as Nat Silver’s. However, this time all sign of joviality was absent. “I’ve done dozens at least of these tests every year for thirty years and it’s very clear. You should come in as soon as possible, even today if you can. It doesn’t affect him like it would a human in such an advanced stage, but he can still pass it on.”
“I don’t believe it. How on earth or the moon could have it happened?”
“There are many ways. I’m extremely sorry, but the fact remains that your husband is HIV positive, and it’s very likely that you have AIDS.”
There was more to the conversation, though I was not destined to hear it. The phone dropped to the floor, and I sank to my knees. I couldn’t stand. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t think. Instead, I leaned my head back, arching the furred spine, and pointed my snout in the air. My paws dragged and ripped through the carpet. They say the cry of a wolf is one of the loneliest and saddest sounds in the world. All reason gone, I just howled.

After learning how to control the complete transformations later on, I carefully kept my brain as human as possible, so that it could both fit in my smaller skull and retain most of my intelligence. That first time around, though, my mind suddenly became simple and wordless. I had the same memories and personality. I did not think the same way. It’s hard to really express what it was like, since as humans we must use language for having and sharing ideas. For most animals, everything is broken up into blocks of essentials.

I felt what I would later call distress. The alphas were threatened–I still remembered they were my parents, but the species difference didn’t register. Since I didn’t know what to do, I waited for instructions. The two came in and made noises that I didn’t understand. They were distressed too.

My father spoke first. “Oh, wonderful.”
Then my mother. “Our daughter. . . look at her eyes. They’re not hers! When I change, except for one night a month, my eyes are still gray. Hers are yellow. Can you hear me, Dianne? Do you understand?”
This all perplexed me. I watched more closely, hoping to figure out some sort of pattern. It was strangely familiar, and I almost knew what those sounds were for, but it was just out of reach. It was beyond me even to realize that the words meant things. For wolves, the shape of words doesn’t matter as much as intonation and the gestures that accompany them. Don’t think that everything I put down here as having been said is something I remember. It’s always hard to imitate a foreign language accurately. This is a reconstruction based on what I caught and what the adults told me afterwards.
“No,” she said finally. “She doesn’t recognize speech.”
Father picked up the oddly shaped white object with little round dots and a single long antenna. His voice projected guilt, confusion, and effort to hold things together. “Look, it’s the other phone. The news must have shocked her into shape-shifting.” He placed a fragile limb around my mother’s shoulders. “How are you holding up, dear?”
“I’ll worry about that later; right now we need to deal with Dianne’s problem. I don’t think she knows how to return.”
“Will she attack us?”
“If she has the same personality, she won’t. With human memories translated into wolf thinking, her temperament should be similar to a dog’s, with us at least.” She crouched and tentatively touched me. I licked her hand, happy with simple affection, and she petted me for a while longer. Drops of water trickled down her face. The alpha male pushed the little dots on the object, making little beeps.
“Hello? Nat? You know how we couldn’t get Dianne to change when we were visiting you? Uh huh. That is no longer an issue. Right. No, we didn’t tell her. . . not now, we’ll talk about that when my entire family is biped again. Thank you.”
After that, I was too frustrated with the meaningless sounds to pay attention, miserable without knowing why. Time passed. The room grew darker as the sun sank down below the trees and buildings, and the wolves all around would soon be active. Without warning there was a different creature in front of me, at my eye level. At first it frightened me, but I recognized the scent as the same female there was before, and pressed myself against the ground to acknowledge her dominance.
With a soft sigh she showed her concern. Our ‘conversation’ continued in a mixture of body language and vocalizations.
I am sad.
I whined.
I am confused.
I am sad too. I need your help.
I am beta juvenile. Awaiting orders.
My instincts made me eager to contribute.
You were different before.
What?
Mom was conveying as much as she could, but wolf dialogue does not include the concept of transforming from one thing to another.
Not a.