LAST WEEK: Jeremy turns Pamela into a vampire. Jeremy and Beethoven are killed, but their ghosts live on, making music in the night streets of San Francisco and bringing happiness and love to all who hear it.
Read last week’s installment here. See all installments here.
Chapter 138
Pamela
San Francisco — 1974
Lake Merritt
Ryo watches, heart sore as Pamela roams the city, spending each night in a different place. She is careless. If instinct had not pushed her underground, she would have stayed outside to greet the dawn. She would have welcomed it, a brief burning and then nothing, a fleeting agony in turn for oblivion, a small price to pay for cessation of sorrow. Pamela walks miles, crossing bridges at night, staying in Berkeley, Oakland, or Marin, smiling bitterly as she remembers Teresa’s hatred of the sticks.
Berkeley is a banquet. Students returning from late night classes, study sessions, or parties are easy pickings. Ryo watches her suck young bodies dry, weigh them down with stones and sink them in Lake Merritt.
“Lake Merritt is a tidal lagoon east of downtown Oakland,” Ryo says. He is talking to Huck, but hoping his words will seep into River’s consciousness. Huck squawks encouragingly.
“Long before man walked these shores, unnamed streams ran along redwood shores into an estuary. The streams were home to spawning salmon. And on moonless nights, you can sometimes still see a few pellucid salmon seeking lost gravel beds, listening to a song deep within their genes.
“I can see back to a time when grizzly bears and elk roamed the hills. Seals, sea otters, and gray whales were common. The Ohlone fished, hunted, and gathered food along its shores. You would have loved it then. But people do not like the untamed things of this earth.
“By eighteen ten, the last Ohlone had been relocated to Mission San José to serve the holy fathers. The Ohlone did not take well to captivity. They vanished like stars above city lights, perishing even more quickly than the wild creatures on the shores. Today they are ghosts, visible only beneath a dark star light, or a new moon.
“In eighteen forty-nine, Dr. Samuel Merritt came west searching for gold. He combed the streams and broke stones looking for hidden veins of treasure. He found none. Some men succumb to despair, others mine their strength.
“‘The lucky may find gold, and the meek may inherit the earth,’ he said, ‘But not the water rights. Water is more precious than gold.’
“Dr. Merritt formed the Oakland Waterfront Company. Soon he controlled the entire shoreline. He built a grand house on the estuary. By eighteen sixty-seven, he was mayor of Oakland. By eighteen sixty-nine he had built a dam, creating the lake that still bears his name.
“The lake had thick wetlands fringing the shore. Its fertile shelter attracted large numbers of migratory birds. The birds in turn attracted equally large numbers of hunters. Dr. Merritt didn’t enjoy the retort of weapons so close to his home. He didn’t like the shores of his lake stained with feathers. The scent of blood was more pungent than the climbing yellow roses curving over his doorway. In eighteen ninety-six, he declared the lake a wildlife refuge. A year later, the state made it official. It was the first game sanctuary in North America.
“Some say that on dark, still nights, nights when the moon is new or hidden by fog, Merritt can still be seen, walking the shores, gently puffing a cigar and surveying his creation.
“Like the migrating birds, people flocked to Oakland. Creeks became drains. Lake Merritt became a harbor for the necessities of nature. Sewage flowed into the arms of the lake, covering it like a shawl across bare shoulders. The stench was terrible. The bloated bodies of bass, once so plentiful they could be scooped from the Lake by hand, floated belly up on the calm waters and ringed the shores.
“Finally, the stink was too much to bear. City officials built new pipes, sending the sewage around the Lake directly, deeply into the bay. All sewage flows to the sea and yet it is not full. At least not yet.
“Without its burden of waste, Lake Merritt began to cleanse itself. A park circles the lake. It’s still as a mirror, reflecting the recombinant juniper which edge the shores like twisted ropes. Above them, white, green, and gold art deco apartments rise like imperial angels.
“You would like it, River, seeing the resident small, back coot plunge beneath the surface like miniature submarines shattering the still water. Watching the gulls soar overhead, battling midair for scraps. Long necked, black-headed Canada Geese float on the placid surface. Thirty years ago, people would flock from miles around to admire the stately Canada Goose, but now they are considered noisy, messy irritants. Feeding is prohibited. Neighbors plot to drive them away. Preservationists destroy their nesting grounds. They are once-rare flowers, become weeds. Exotics have never bothered me much. Things travel and spread, always have, always will. Funny, that the most invasive species there is makes it their cause to combat aliens.
“If you visited the lake, River, you might have given them rolls so crunchy they would have never squawked again. They would have followed you, silent as white cheeked shadows. But you remained in the city and the geese remained a nuisance.
“The fish, lizards, and salamanders hiding beneath rocks and foliage don’t mind the Canada geese. They would, however, if they could eradicate the Black-crowned Night Heron, who crouch secretly in the shadows, skewering minnows and reptiles with dagger-sharp beaks.
“Tall eucalyptuses tower round parts of the lake. Like vampires, eucalyptus arrived during the Gold Rush. And like the vampires, eucalyptus do not decay.
“Great and Snowy Egrets, white as dreams with serpentine necks and long questing beaks nest in eucalyptus, but songbirds find no purchase. They cannot make cavities for nesting in the firm, eternally youthful wood. Short-billed birds poking for beetles or worms suffocate, their nostrils clogged with pitch.
“Like geese, the eucalyptuses have become pests. Residents wish them gone. Some have even smuggled in Australian insects to attack them. But, like the trees, like the geese, like the vampires, the bugs always prefer exotic sources of food.
“Black Cormorants reside at the lake year-round. Unlike most diving birds, the Cormorant does not have waterproof feathers. When they emerge from the water, they perch and extend their wings outward to dry, giving them the nickname ‘Jesus Christ Birds.’
“They are so buoyant they must eat pebbles to dive. In Japan, fishermen bind their necks with metal rings to prevent them from swallowing and scoop fish from their sealed throats.
“If an Ohlone’s guardian spirit was a Cormorant, he’d possess a knack for accomplishing what others could not. Cormorants are feathered reminders to dive without hesitation. But now the Ohlone have vanished, and the Cormorants have been transformed from totems to fishhooks.
“It’s easier not to mourn the disappearance of the wild and the taming of the estuary when you can see the future as clearly as the past. I can see the concrete and metal collapse and crumble. Slowly, the lake will resume her old form, her true form, a creature of the tides, a mingling of fresh water and salt tears. The salmon will run again and the spirits of the Ohlone and elk will wander the shores.
“Of course, I also see its damming again, and Pamela’s disposals, and feel your heart break. That is the way with circles: they never end. We can’t stop them where we want to. Space curves, even as we walk forward.”
Ryo watches a group of students wander home from a late-night meeting. They chatter like birds. They part ways, scattering through the night, solitary as the red eyed Night Herons that huddle on the shore.
Trailing a young man until he is alone, Pamela bites. As soon as teeth sink into flesh, she knows something is wrong. This blood, usually so sweet, tastes acrid. Her insides twist, writhing like a live creature. She falls to the ground, barely having time to crawl into the shelter of a cellar before daylight. When she awakes the next night, her canines have dissolved.
Chapter 139
River
San Francisco — 1987
Predator and Prey
River enters Bert’s. In spite of himself, his heart leaps at the sight of Pam. He wants his heart to be stone. He wants never to have met her. But wishes are overrun by desire. Love triumphs over fear.
The crystal necklace hangs around his neck, beautiful as a promise, certain as loss. Pamela looks up. Her nostrils widen as if she smells food, as if she smells blood.
She lunges at River, grabbing at the necklace, tugging with all her strength. Its delicate chain is surprisingly strong. He is dragged toward her.
“Take off the necklace, River,” Pamela hisses. “It lures them… They feel the energy, see the colors that once were white. That is why there are killings. It draws them… draws us.
“Yes—us. The undead. We hear the lack of a heartbeat, smell the lack of blood, see the light of night in shining fangs.”
The chain won’t give way, it’s ripping his throat, tearing his flesh. She pulls him to her. She’s supernaturally strong. She yanks him into a back room and shuts the door. In the dark, Pamela’s eyes gleam like a cat’s.
River exhales, torn between terror and grief. Pamela, his Pamela, is a monster. He had known, of course he had known, since the moment he had seen Thanatos bottling blood. But he had not seen, not felt, not believed, the transformation of love to loathing. There’s a pain in his chest. He can barely breathe.
Pamela turns the light on, changing the pantry to an unnatural day. She is still clutching the necklace. She looks so sweet, so beautiful, so human. Her hands reach around him, unfastening the clasp, drawing the chain toward her.
“My heart is full with words I have not said to you,” she says. “They block my throat and stop my breath. I know you despise me, think I’m not the woman you loved.… But I didn’t choose my fate. People pity lambs and fear wolves. But both are necessary, both part of the cycle. There is the world of living and world of the dead, and then there are those in between.
“We have no souls, but that does not mean we have no conscience. You may have heard tales of us surviving on rats, or dining only on the evil or the lost… they are not true. We must eat whenever night falls, no matter what or who we find, especially the first time. We have no control, no free will, predator and prey… all of us… all of you.
“I was reborn when I was bitten. You would be reborn too… if you wanted… if I could…”
Pamela spits out a bridge, exposing gaps where her eyeteeth should have been.
“But I cannot bite you. I cannot change you. I am not even a predator anymore. We require human blood, healthy blood. Without it, our canines rot. We cannot feed, yet nor can we die. Those who lack teeth, those who contain poison within them, cannot reproduce, cannot spread the toxin. In that way, our species is more kind than yours, more kind than most.
“I used to be kind. Then, hostile… finally, distant, but alive… or at least as alive as an undead can be. Now I’m a toothless vampire…what a joke. Not very funny, but a joke nonetheless.” Pamela grins her closed lipped grin. “Not alive, or dead, or undead.” Her face crumbles with unshedable tears. “I thought that I was done with love. The only close contacts I had were with creatures like Thanatos.
“I didn’t want to want you! I didn’t want to feel! It’s too hard. What am I going to do? I can’t die and I can’t make you live like me, even if you wanted to.
“And I can’t even cry, damn it! It’d be funny if it weren’t so damn sad.”
Watch the author read this week’s installment in the video below:
NEXT WEEK: The pantry door blows open. Gabriel is there, indigo eyes focused. He has heard the call of crystal, like a ripple in the stream, like a virus in the body, expanding every outward, encompassing eternity.
Edited by Mitchelle Lumumba and Sophie Gorjance.
E.E. King is cohost of the MetaStellar YouTube channel's Long Lost Friends segment. She is also a painter, performer, writer, and naturalist. She’ll do anything that won’t pay the bills, especially if it involves animals. Ray Bradbury called her stories “marvelously inventive, wildly funny and deeply thought-provoking. I cannot recommend them highly enough.” She’s been published widely, including Clarkesworld and Flametree. She also co-hosts The Long Lost Friends Show on MetaStellar's YouTube channel. Check out paintings, writing, musings, and books at ElizabethEveKing.com and visit her author page on Amazon.