The Vampire Tibbles
by James Quiggle

The Beginning

Now that I'm an old woman, I visit my mother's grave more out of guilt than love. It's a burden, but it is one of the many prices I paid for a long life. Now that I've spent my youth and beauty, those regrets are all I have left.

In my old age I've come to accept that my memories offer no comfort. Instead they attack me in my dreams, and the night has become my enemy.

As a result, I often find myself yawning by her stone while darkness gives way to the first gleams of sunless morning. And though I pray the night will pass quietly, I strain to hear every sound.

Most mornings are quiet. Sometimes, though, there's no mistaking it: a quick scraping/scratching, like a dog burrowing in dry dirt. It's a tiny sound that sweeps my mind back over the ocean of my life to the summer I turned seventeen.

That's the season I gave my virginity to the most beautiful boy my eyes have ever seen. But I'm not haunted by the ghost of Tommy Vendel. I am haunted by the memory of a poodle named Tibbles.

That Summer

"Your dog tried to kill me last night," Momma said. She was talking to Darlene Kinderman while I washed dishes.

"You saw my baby?"

Nodding, Momma said, "Your baby tried to take my hand off."

"Tibbles don't bite."

Mrs. Kinderman stubbed out her cigarette, and lit another. She was our neighbor, and a Sunday-after-church fixture in our kitchen. In spite of diabetes, she fearlessly guzzled our iced tea and filled our ashtrays with brown butts.

"Darlene, Tibbles is a poodle," Momma said, holding up her bandaged hand. "He bites everybody."

"Oh my God, Wilma, did he do that to your hand?"

"I saw him Monday night, over by my hydrangeas, and he was just a sight." Momma sat down at the table and leaned in as if she were about to divulge government secrets. "He looked like he's been swimming in shit," she said.

"Momma! Watch your mouth," I said, and threw a towel at her. It landed on her tall hairdo, spread out like a moth in a spider web. Momma lifted it off without disturbing a strand.

"What happened then?" Darlene whispered with a hand over her mouth.

"Well I tried to catch him," Momma said, "but when I bent over to pick him up it was like I pushed my hand into a ball of barbed wire."

"It just can't be." Darlene said.

"Darlene . . . right hand to God, that dog stepped clear outside of his mind." Momma threw the towel back at me. "He chased me into the house, didn't he Vicky?"

"Yes Momma," I said, rolling my eyes and reciting my lines. "Tibbles is a killer."

"Dear Lord," Darlene said, "he's been run away for so long he's gone and reverted back to the wild."

I snorted laughter.

"What's so funny, girl?" Darlene said.

"There's no such thing as 'wild poodles.' You all are starting to sound like Marcus."

"What do you mean?" Momma said.

"He thinks Tibbles is a vampire."

The phone rang, and my heart jumped. Momma looked at me with a big grin, and cha-cha'd over to pick it up.

"Hello," She sang with her eyes locked on mine.

"Hi Tommy. How you doing, sugar? How's your Momma? How's your Daddy?"

"Momma," I said, "give me the damn phone."

She laughed and handed me the receiver. "That boy is just the politest thing."

The Will of Tommy

"Hi Tommy."

"Hello, Vee." His voice was deep and rich like the man on the p.a. system at the Fisher-Fazio's.

"What're you doing?"

"I'm wondering," he said.

"Wondering what?"

"I'm wondering if you have room for me in your heart?" he said.

"Yes."

"Do you love me?" he said.

"Yes."

"Till death do us part?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Is your Momma listening?"

"Yes."

"What about your fat neighbor?" he said.

"Yes."

"Vee?" he said.

"What?"

"Will you meet me in your boathouse Friday night at midnight?" he said. "Don't say yes unless you want me to be your man."

I paused. "Yes."

The Mind of Marcus

Before I reached my room, Marcus met me in the upstairs hallway. He'd been crying, and God help me, his sadness irritated me.

When he was eight years old, a PBS talk show had interviewed my brother; something about a new idea he had for solid fuel rocket engines. Everybody thought he was something special back then, but by the summer I turned seventeen all that had changed.

People thought he was circus freak. Being his sister, the effects on my own life were not much better, and most things he did irritated me.

"What are you crying about, Marcus?" I kept walking, and he backed up to avoid a collision.

"Didn't you hear what Momma said?"

"Well, I didn't get it amplified through the heating ducts, so why don't you tell me what I missed."

"Tibbles bit her."

At first I didn't understand, but then I remembered that he believed Tibbles was a vampire. And if the poodle bit Momma . . .

"Jesus Christ, Marcus," I said. He stood in front of my door, blocking my entry.

"Think about it," he said. "She's tired all the time. Been sick ever since it happened, went to the doctor for tests--"

"All that proves is that she's an old lady."

Tears rolled down his cheeks, and he mashed them away. Still, my irritation only grew.

"Besides," I said, "what if she is? Are you going to wait till she's taking one of her naps and put a stake in her heart?"

"Shut up," he said. "You're so stupid sometimes." Sniffling, he punched another tear off his cheek. "Once Tibbles is dead, all the vampires he made will go back to normal. All we've got to do is--"

"Look," I interrupted, "I may not have your IQ, but I know you can't run around killing the neighbor's dog. You sound like a damn psycho."

I headed for the bathroom. I knew he wouldn't follow me in there.

"Have you noticed all the 'Lost Dog' signs at the deli?" he said, following me. "They're all little dogs. I watched him turn Mrs. Lewis's Chihuahua into a vampire, but now I think he got them all."

He kept talking, even after I closed the bathroom door.

"It's going to be a full moon this Friday, so I'm going to sneak out and hunt Tibbles down."

He talked a while longer, but my brain had already locked up. If he went out on Friday, my plans with Tommy were ruined.

"Marcus!" I said yanking the door open. I knew I couldn't stop him, so I figured I better make sure he didn't screw up and get caught. "Why wait till Friday? You can go out tonight; I'll come with you."

The Hunt

Sneaking out of the house was never a problem. Both my parents where heavy sleepers, and my father snored like Odin splitting the sky.

"We have to put on armor," Marcus said. "It's in the garage."

My father's fishing things were out there. He had a couple skinny knives with fat handles, and boxes full of hooks, but Marcus said those were no good against a vampire.

"It's got to be a wooden stake through the heart. That's the only way to be sure."

Ignoring the weapons, he slid into a pair of heavy wading boots, the kind that come up like coveralls. He motioned for me to put on the other pair.

"The dogs are small," he said, "they'll attack your legs first."

I decided to humor him, but as I approached the boots the smells of my father's hobby washed over me. Marcus must have noticed my hesitation.

"The dogs don't have to bite you on the neck to kill you," he said, "anyplace will do. The boots will protect you."

"I can't."

"Suit yourself." He opened a box and pulled out some things he'd collected. A football helmet and assorted pads. Stiff leather welder's gloves that were nearly as long as my arm. A catcher's outfit complete with a facemask and chest pad. A neck brace from the time Daddy had whiplash.

"You've got to be kidding," I said.

By the time we walked out of the garage into the night, Marcus looked and smelled like a walking pile of garbage. I agreed to wear the gloves, but I felt like a fool anyway. The stiff leather made it nearly impossible to bend my fingers.

Marcus carried a bow and six sharpened wooden arrows. Despite his ridiculous appearance, I somehow felt safe walking out into the darkness with him.

Our backyard ended in the waters of a large lake called Granger's Pond. From those muddy shores came the subdued roar from thousands of chirping frogs.

Each house on the lake had a dock with its own boathouse. Just past the Kinderman's dock, a manicured path followed the waterline into a forest. We were headed into those shadows when we heard a crash from a boathouse a couple of yards down.

"This is it." Marcus said, as he started to jog toward the sound, jangling like a chuck wagon.

My mouth felt dry.

The light was on outside the boathouse, and in its glow I could see about seven lap dogs playing in the mess from a turned-over garbage can. There was a poodle among them less than knee high. Its white curls were stained the color of dirt, but I recognized the puffy ball haircut on its head and tail. Tibbles.

He was being his usual nasty self, snapping and barking at the other dogs while they ran around in circles and wrestled with each other. It could have been a scene from a Norman Rockwell painting. I turned to say so to Marcus, and saw him sighting down an arrow with the bow pulled all the way back.

Before I could do anything, he let fly and the siren scream of a wounded dog split my eardrums.

"Marcus!"

The dogs scattered, except for one; Marcus missed Tibbles, but managed to hit a Yorky named Peterson that belonged to a girl across the lake. The arrow pierced the flesh of its neck, pinning the dog to the ground like a beetle in a collector's case.

After only a second or two, the wailing gurgled . . . then stopped.

I threw down my gloves, my ridiculous armor, and ran over to it.

Tears blurred my vision, and I had to drop to my knees to see the dog. Its mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out. I put my hand down to lift its head a little, and its tongue peeped out and licked my thumb.

Marcus's shadow fell over Peterson and me. He reached over my shoulder, and yanked the arrow out. The force of his tug lifted the dog partly off the ground, and while I watched in numb silence, he plunged the arrow into its chest.

Somehow it hadn't seemed real: the Tibbles-is-a-vampire, the arrows, until that moment. I couldn't find a breath as I scrambled backward away from the murder.

Away from Marcus.

When he turned toward me in the light, his face shone with tears and his eyes hid from mine.

Without a word I went back to the house. I don't know what Marcus did after I left, and I never asked him what he did with the dog's body.

Friday Night

I didn't speak to Marcus the rest of that week, but I could tell that his demeanor had changed. He'd become colder, as if killing the dog had hardened him.

I found myself unable to look at him without getting angry. He disgusted me. Everyday I expected him to be found out. Maybe even an angry mob, complete with torches and pitchforks would come to carry him off.

But life continued as if everything were still normal. I pretended it was normal, too, and soon pretending got easier.

When Friday night arrived, time to sneak out, it wasn't so easy to do.

Inside the house, I'd been thankful for the full moon. At least I'd be able to see. When I closed the door behind me, though, my gratitude turned into dread.

Outside I realized that I was truly alone; I felt naked. The glow from the moon transformed the backyard into an alien landscape.

The wide expanse of lawn, marbled with shadows, was a blue sea where black things swam. The Kinderman's yard, with its canopy of granddaddy oaks, became a pitch-dark cave where their backdoor light could only penetrate as far as the porch steps and the nearby cellar doors.

"Tommy," I said, but my whisper was drowned in the chorus of chirping frogs. Everywhere I looked I saw the demons from my nightmares crouching in the shadows.

As I edged past the place in the yard where we buried our fallen pets, I wondered what so much time underground had done to those soft bodies, those bony claws. I wondered if they'd remember how we loved each other. Then I thought about Marcus and what he had done.

Suddenly it seemed that their three-foot graves were not nearly deep enough. I turned and ran to the boathouse, into the waiting arms of Tommy Vendel.

"What's wrong?" He asked, while I caught my breath. The sound of his voice wiped away all the fear.

"Vampires," I said without thinking, then felt silly. We both laughed.

"Let's go in the garage instead of the boathouse," he said. "I've got something to show you upstairs."

The Vampire Tibbles

Our garage had a loft we used for storage. Tommy must have arrived earlier, because a layer of smoke hung in the air from dozens of candles surrounding an old mattress. He'd nailed heavy blankets over the windows.

"After tonight," I said, hugging him so I could hide against his neck, "we'll be lovers."

"If dreams count, we've been lovers for a long time."

I couldn't see his face, but I knew he was blushing. He was the sort of boy who often said things like that, but he was also the sort of boy who blushed.

After a second of silence, I felt his body slump.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"I forgot the flowers."

"It's okay," I said, but he was already pulling away.

"I've got to have flowers to give you," he said. "Everything will be ruined without flowers." Then he waved, leaped down the stairs and was gone before I could protest.

Only mildly disappointed, I kicked off my shoes and climbed into the bed Tommy had made. I studied the dancing shadows on the ceiling. The flickering of the candles caused a shifting pattern of color and shadow.

Then I felt afraid for reasons I couldn't quite understand. I jumped out of the bed, and pulled aside the heavy blanket that covered the window facing the backyard.

Across the lawn, I saw Tommy tiptoeing through my Momma's flower garden. He was building a bouquet in one hand, and in the moonlight it looked like shades of blue, and purple, and black. His progress would have been quicker, but he kept spinning around and looking over his shoulder.

He was afraid of something.

I looked around the yard, but there was nothing. The window was closed, so all I could hear was the unending murmur of the frogs.

Tommy's agitation added to my own sense of dread. Suddenly he jumped, swiveled quickly and dropped the flowers. I heard his startled yelp through the window.

I followed the line of his gaze toward the Kinderman's yard. It was Tibbles. Tommy laughed at himself and walked toward the animal, kneeling a little with his hands out in front of him. He was going to pick the dog up, but Tibbles just sat there like a filthy statue of a poodle. Waiting.

The other dogs must have been waiting, too, because when he was a few feet away from Tibbles, they attacked. From all directions, six tiny animals swarmed over his legs, tearing at his jeans. They must have caught skin as well as denim, because Tommy screamed. He started kicking. Punching. Throwing. Fighting to keep them off him, but every time he sent one skittering across the yard, it came back at him with renewed force. The whole time, Tibbles sat watching.

My vision became obscured by fog, and I realized my face was pressed against the window. I turned and ran down the stairs.

I burst through the door just as Tommy lost his balance. Pinwheeling his arms, he fell backward into the flowerbed, and that's when Tibbles joined the fray.

I ran to help him, flying in my bare feet, but the entire length of the yard lay between us.

Three of the dogs lay twitching on the grass, but the rest were all over his bare torso, biting and jerking at his flesh until he swatted them away. With a sick feeling in my belly, I realized he couldn't get up. They were coming at him so fast, he wasn't yelling or screaming from the pain. He was grunting.

It sounded like he was being killed.

Across the yard, coming from the lake, I heard a plastic clanking sound. Marcus was galloping toward us, complete with armor and bow and arrow. He was between me and Tommy. Clearly he would get there first, but he stopped short.

With practiced grace, he pulled the bow up and notched an arrow. He took aim at the pile of dogs. At Tibbles. At Tommy.

Running full speed, I bowled him over just as he released the arrow. It spun sideways out of the bow, clacking into the trees behind the Kinderman's house.

Both of us tumbled down in a jumble of homemade armor, and Marcus came up howling, holding his hand. One arrow's sharpened point had lodged itself between his thumb and finger. I didn't care.

I scrambled to my feet, and ran the short distance to Tommy. By the time I got there Tibbles and the dogs that could still walk were gone. Tommy was struggling to get up. Blood coursed down his chest from a terrible wound in his neck, and he leaned heavily against me.

Helping him back toward our house, I saw Marcus crawl over to where the wounded dogs were mewling and struggling by the flower garden. One by one he drove wooden arrows into their hearts.

The Latter Days

In the days that followed, the police told us the pack of strays had probably become territorial over the area of the flower garden, which would explain both attacks that had occurred there. Of course Marcus didn't believe it, but he had the sense to keep quiet.

I wish I could say I saved Tommy, but that would be a lie. He survived, that's all. He was different after that. The boy I knew retreated behind the man he became, and I never saw him again.

Oh, he and I eventually married, and I spent seven years haunting a bottle of booze with him, looking for that boy. One night, he and the bottle up and left and I was alone.

Momma died in the autumn of that year. She had a weak heart, and according to the doctors it just stopped beating. They all knew it would happen one day, and that day had simply arrived. There was no mention of a dog bite, or a lack of blood, or vampires. She just died.

Marcus didn't stop hunting Tibbles, and for all I know he still hunts him today. After that night he shut down, and focused his attention on blaming me, hating me. There was a small scene before Momma's burial, where Marcus insisted we cremate her, but after that the whole affair was forgotten.

But Marcus never forgot.

As a man, he swung into religion with both feet, and forgave me instantly. But it was false forgiveness. Christian forgiveness. The kind that is like an over-soft hairbrush which smooths out the surface, but leaves all the tangles and snarls underneath.

After that night, I grew up, and grew old.

My eyes have seen much of what there is to see, and these days there are things in my memory I never could have dreamed of on that long-ago summer. These days it's not so easy to say what's real and what isn't.

Even if Marcus suddenly became the kind of brother I could tell my heart to over a cup of sweet tea, I'd lie for his own good and tell him I still don't believe in vampires. I'd tell him that I sit by our Mother's grave, silently, and never mention that I hear a scratching-scraping-digging noise coming from it.

And I'd never tell him that when I visit Momma's grave on those early mornings with night still hanging on, I wear the filthy rubber boots and the football pads and the neck brace; just like he taught me so long ago. His own ridiculous armor.

Only it's not ridiculous. Not anymore. Now I pray it's enough, and I hold tight to my wooden arrow, and wonder if Momma will recognize me, and I wait.

A proud member of the Black Lodge Writing Group, James Quiggle is an avid writer of dark fiction. He lives quietly with his wife and son in a ghetto suburb of Cleveland, and is not ashamed to say he's been cat-free for more than a decade. Those scars may stop hurting, but they'll never disappear.