Write-A-Thon Update

I've raised my target amount of money - actually slightly more than my target amount - and I'm going on a sabbatical from these daily blog postings. I feel bad doing so, like I'm letting people down, but I've just exhausted my creative juices. Guess I'm not like some of my friends in that regard, who can keep churning out good work without getting sick of it.

This does not mean I'm abandoning all writing enterprises, though. I am slowly building up a short story for a new Damnation Books anthology, as well as launching Humans and Demons and Elves tomorrow and the day after (time zones are making my schedule funny). I am also translating yet another Shakespeare play into modern English for my best Elance client.

I will eventually get back to expanding The Raw Ghosts of Thailand and working on Sweeping the Puddles Away, I promise. I'm just going to concentrate on the stuff that pays immediately for now.

Thank you for your understanding.

300 for 30: Day 24

“My period’s usually here by now each month,” Taylor elaborated as Nat took her hand and led her to one of the mattresses. Without seeming to be aware of it, she had an arm protectively over her stomach. “And I’ve never felt that particular kind of nausea before.”

“I thought you weren’t supposed to…” Ferdinand began.

Sally rolled her eyes. “Hush. If there ever was a time not to criticize, honestly. Congratulations, dear. I presume it is your fiancé’s.”

Taylor’s smile fluttered but shone. “You’re right, Ferdinand, I wasn’t supposed to. But there are circumstances you don’t know about. You were asking earlier how Derrick and I have this mind-link. It’s time to tell you that story.”

Ferdinand by this point had figured out that Rivki would accept his fingers in lieu of a pacifier. It hurt less than the neck, and right now the infant seemed to want more comfort than nourishment. “Go on,” he said, much more gently.

“When I was sixteen I started having visions. I was visited by a ghost named Tylianvornika, or ‘Ty’, myself from a previous life. The life was in a different universe. Fortunately I found out I wasn’t crazy, because my two best friends could see her too. They had lived lives in that universe as well. We faced an apocalypse together.”

Nat put his chin in his hand and nodded. “You need to sell the movie rights.”

Taylor gave a laugh. “Only you, Nat, could say that so sincerely and respectfully.”

“Forgive me if this sounds far-fetched,” Ferdinand said.

“Ferdy, you’re holding a vampire baby and listening to a story by a young lady who is periodically possessed by her lover, at which point her eyes glow orange,” Sally said.

“Point taken. Only my sister gets to call me that, though.”

“Duly noted.”

“Anyway, Derrick was there too. His name was Riquaniuvant, or ‘Riq’. I hadn’t met him yet in this life. I knew I would one day, though. Two years later, I did. I started working at his pet shop. But he didn’t remember me. Sometimes he’d look at me oddly, like he was recalling something from a dream, but he never said a thing.

"I had a little bedroom in the back part of the shop, the way people so often do in countries like Thailand. Derrick had a separate bedroom and bathroom, and we shared a kitchenette and living area. We had only been friends up to that point. One night, as I was trying to sleep, Ty came to me one last time. ‘He’s washing dishes,” she told me. ‘Go kiss him. Then, when he remembers and asks if you will, go to his room with him. One day it will save your life.’”

300 for 30: Day 23

A small window slid open and a pack of sticky rice, a plastic-wrapped haunch of roast chicken, and a banana dropped onto the floor inside their cell. Taylor dove for it.

"Don't choke, dear," Sally said.

When she was finished eating, which took no more than five minutes, Taylor crumpled up the plastic and put it in the corner of the bathroom, since there was no garbage bin. She flushed the banana peel down the toilet. “Don’t want it attracting flies,” she muttered.

Rivki started crying again. Ferdinand rocked him and rubbed his back. “Have you heard from Derrick?”

Taylor poked her head out the open doorway. “He’s out on the bail Dianne paid for him. He’ll be on a flight this afternoon his time.” Then she closed the door.

“So…anyone have an idea how we can pass the time?” Sally asked, attempting to comb her long brown hair with her fingers.

“We could play ‘Never Have I Ever’,” Nat suggested. Ferdinand glowered at him. “Okay, Supernatural Superserious votes no. Shall we tell jokes? Or stories? Or we could share personal confessions of a dark and serious and/or humorous nature?”

“I’m thinking of joining the Mormons,” Ferdinand said, even surprising himself.

Nat whipped his head around. “What?”

“Before you get into a theological argument, boys, I think Taylor’s just been sick,” Sally said.

“Oh God.” Nat rushed to the door and knocked. “Taylor, are you all right?”

“Could it be food poisoning?” Ferdinand asked.

“Probably not this soon after eating,” Nat replied.

Taylor was silent for a few seconds, which was a pause lengthy enough to make all of the vampires nervous. Then she began to, of all things, laugh. She opened the door and her eyes were filled with tears. Happy tears. “I’m not certain, but I think…I think I’m pregnant.”

300 for 30: Day 18

I'm going with something half-baked today, because I'm tired and starting to slide into another depression. Who knows, I might perk up in the process.

So you get a list! (And there was much rejoicing - insert dispirited 'yayyyyy'.)



Writing-Related Things I'm Doing At the Moment

1. This 300-for-30 which is going to morph into 750-for-Clarion on the 26th.
A. Some it, as you have seen, is miscellany like this.
B. Another portion is my Raw Ghosts of Thailand expansion, again obvious on this blog.
C. Though I'm in composting mode, letting Sweeping the Puddles Away mature in my brain before I make a serious attempt at it, I may take a few nibbles as part of the Write-A-Thon if I tire of A and B.

2. A "translation" of a Shakespeare play into modern English [I won't say which publicly; I signed a non-disclosure agreement], ghostwriting for a $200 payment. Due on the 25th. I'm glad it's not overlapping with the Write-A-Thon.

3. Editing the first manuscript in my new long-term position, for $50. Low pay but great resume/work experience credit; the publisher is quite snazzy. This is due on the 22nd. I have not received the actual manuscript yet. If I don't get it by tomorrow I am requesting an extension, because I said I'd need a week to do it, and they had better GIVE me a week, by Eru! And they'll give me another one immediately afterwards that I must have done before August 1st, since they "had to fire one of their copyeditors".
* I must admit, I am curious about what the copyeditor did.

4. Waiting to hear back from Queryshark, of queryshark.blogspot.com , to see if she is interested at all in either posting my query for Seasons Four Open the Door on her blog and eviscerating it, or on, just maybe, requesting pages. In the meantime I am polishing the query until it screams, so that if 90 days pass with no reply I can resubmit a better one in September.

5. Waiting to hear back from various other agents for Seasons Four.

6. Promotion, promotion, promotion for Humans and Demons and Elves. I'm hoping to get the Facebook page fanbase to at least 300 before July 7th. I will have to take some time off my Embassy job on the big day to be available on live chat during my appointed hour, and draft up some contests/"press releases" to put on the Yahoo loop.

7. Waiting to hear back from The Memory Eater anthology about whether a story I submitted pleases the editor enough to be included. I would get a share of whatever the book makes. I adore the Ryan-North-edited Machine of Death anthology this is inspired by, and would love to be part of a similar project. I'm on equal footing with all the other submitters credential-wise, though, since the editor has explicitly stated s/he doesn't care about that. But their twitter does follow mine, which can't be a bad sign anyway.

8. Growing my Twitter community- largely consisting of trying to find interesting things to say on command, like a trained parrot.

9. Occasional fanfic, because I'm a writingslut like that.

10. And a partridge in a pear tree.

300 for 30: Day 17

Chapter 15: Saving Grace

Taylor and Nat eventually fell asleep platonically huddled together. Ferdinand woke up with an arm around Sally, then rolled away, embarrassed. Sally opened one eye. “I really don’t mind that much,” she murmured.

Before Ferdinand could say anything, Rivki started crying. So instead of trying to figure out the best way to respond Ferdinand scooped up the baby and helped him bite. It hurt less this time. Ferdinand must have been getting used to it.

“If he gestated for three years,” Taylor said sleepily, “how – how long is Rivki going to nurse? Your neck is going to be covered in little tooth marks.”

“Assuming they let us keep him,” Ferdinand replied, stroking Riki’s black hair.

Nat sat up, rubbing his eyes. “They gave him back because they couldn’t get him to eat otherwise, and they didn’t want him to die. I don’t know if there’s another social experiment happening without a vampire baby draining the adults, to isolate the independent variable and all that jazz.”

Taylor gave a weak laugh. “I feel like I’m in a Beckett play. Waiting for Derrick.”

“Mm. Or a really, really low-budget Doctor Who episode,” Nat said.

"How, exactly?" Ferdinand asked.

"In some of the Classic Who, they get captured, then they escape, then they run around for a while and find out things and see monsters, and then they get captured again. Just in time for the cliffhanger."

"Speaking of which, have you guys tried to bang the door down?"

Nat sighed. "Yeah. They can run an electric current through it. I'm not doing that again."

Sally stood and headed to the bathroom. “I’m getting some water. It’s not filling, but it’s better than nothing. I advise you gentlemen do as well. Hard meantimes ahead.”

The silence that followed was so uncomfortable that Ferdinand broke it before Sally’s return. “I hope Miriam meant for us to call the baby ‘Rivki’. It doesn’t sound Arabic to me.”

“What, are you thinking she was trying to say something else, and we misunderstood?” Nat asked.

“He’s a pretty ad hoc child anyway. Let it go,” Taylor said.

“Oh. My. Goodness.”

“What is it, Nat? I can’t look where you’re pointing; I have a baby latched onto a major artery. Never said that before.”

“Gecko. Large gecko.” Nat leaped to catch it on the far end of the wall. “If I get it, I’ll share.”

Taylor seemed more depressed than ever at how desperately pleased Nat was.

300 for 30: Day 15 (Halfway Through!)

Ferdinand's first thought upon emerging out of the darkness was that he might sustain some brain damage, given all this violent blacking out recently. At least he didn't drink much alcohol, and hadn't let himself get drunk since his turning, for fear of losing control and hurting someone.

The memory of him almost losing control and hurting someone hit him at the same instant he heard Nat's voice, soft and ragged at the edges. Ferdinand opened one eye the tiniest bit, trying to preserve the illusion of remaining out of it while still wide enough to catch a glimpse of Nat. The older vampire was curled in a fetal position with his head sideways in Taylor's lap. She cupped his cheek with her left hand and stroked his mussed, sweat-streaked red hair with the other. "I don't think I'll be able to," Nat was saying.

"Oh, Nat. Once he comes into his senses he'll be glad you stopped him," Taylor replied.

Nat clutched her knee. "That's not what I'm worried about. I haven't always been the person you know. I'm so old now. I did things when I was young..."

"That was then. You saved me. Focus on that."

"I've gotta say it like tearing off a band-aid. Otherwise I'll never get it out." He spoke even more quietly, barely above a whisper. "I went to Vietnam during the war the US had with it. My choice. I was already turned by then. I thought I'd be able to kill and eat people without guilt if it was for my country."

"Didn't work out that way, I'm guessing."

Reaching up, Nat gently put a finger over Taylor's lips. "Thank you, but please let me finish. One day while I was there, more or less doing okay, though there were issues and all, I stumbled on some American soldiers. I usually kept clear of them. They were - they were...hurting...a little girl. I did something I should not have done. Very bad. Beyond the pale."

Taylor said nothing, but kissed the top of his head, letting him gather his thoughts.

"I buried it pretty deep, that memory. Tried to make up for it in so many ways. Desperate situations make people desperate. I get that. But Ferdinand...he's been my friend all these years. What I did...what I..." He put his hands over his face. "Pushing him against the wall like that - it made me remember what I did to those men, when I was angry and lost, lonely and vengeful. It felt way too good. God, it was so good - and I wanted more from my friend, more than he would ever want to give me. Like I wanted to repeat the most horrible thing I've ever done."

"Oh, Nat." Taylor sounded a little teary herself, though not at all disgusted or frightened. It reminded Ferdinand of how Selene used to be, when they had to face his weaknesses.

"I know how he feels. I know he wasn't just fighting because of his craving to bite you. He found out just before we were trapped that I'm attracted to him, and have been for a long time. I sensed the hunter in him, for you, but he could feel the hunter in me, for him. Assuming we get out of here, that means I must never see him again."

300 for 30: Day 14

The bathroom door stayed shut for a long time. Sally fell asleep, as did Rivki. Ferdinand placed the infant in a corner so that no one would accidentally roll over and crush him. As he came near Taylor, despite the barrier between them, he realized it wasn’t just her embarrassment and desire for privacy keeping her in there. Taylor must have blown her nose too hard, because he could smell it bleeding.

He knew the correct thing to do would be to scoot away, as far as possible given the circumstances, and recite poetry until certain…urges…passed. Right. Really, though, couldn’t she at least give him a little taste of it? He wouldn’t bite her. He had self-control. He could – well, if she just – maybe – so thirsty – everything going brown and fuzzy…

He felt strong hands yank him backwards, and before he could voice his objections and declare how he was fine, didn’t need intervention, Nat’s mouth closed over his in a bruising, aggressive kiss. Ferdinand tried to hit him and to tear down the door keeping him from that beautiful scent, but Nat pressed him against the wall with his entire weight, pinning him despite his struggles, and squeezed his hands around Ferdinand’s throat. “Don’t frighten her even more,” Nat growled, low so Taylor wouldn’t hear. “Stay there and calm down.”

“Get off m-“

When Nat not only sealed his lips over Ferdinand’s again but also thrust his tongue in his mouth, Ferdinand clamped down with his fangs. It must have hurt but Nat made no sound, holding fast and choking Ferdinand tighter and tighter. It takes ten minutes to make a vampire black out from air loss, usually, but Ferdinand was already weak from hunger, exhaustion, and head injury, so it was probably more like five minutes before he fainted.

300 for 30: Day 13

When Taylor started crying, Nat crept over to the other side of the cell and put his arms around her. “Hey, kiddo, it’s going to be okay. If I have to choke those two to unconsciousness and then knock myself out on the sink to keep you safe, I’ll do it. My self-restraint is pretty good. I went to med school a bunch of different times after I became a vampire, to get all those different degrees. I can handle being around blood. And the baby can’t even crawl to you.”

“You’re so sweet,” Taylor choked, burying her face in his chest. “I’m…I’m not sure you’ll be able…and what if one of you…”

Sally patted Taylor on the back. “I doubt a little scent is going to overcome our feelings of humanity.”
“How kind of you to lie; Sally. Dianne – Ferdinand’s daughter – told me that Ferdinand couldn’t even be in the same room with her and her mom during their heavy days. Selene had to resort to…you know…those kinds of…of birth control.”

“If worse comes to the worst, I solemnly swear that I’ll make sure you get changed rather than outright killed,” Ferdinand said, shifting Rivki to the other side to get a better view of Taylor. “Unless you strongly object to that, of course. Selene did. She thought the werewolf-and-vampire combination would be dangerous for everyone else. And I respected that.”

“I need to go to the bathroom,” Taylor whispered, untangling herself from Nat. She rushed away. They could hear her unsuccessfully fighting sobs.

Nat turned towards his comrades in woe. His face was grim. “We have to stay optimistic for her sake, but how thirsty are each of you? I could drink about a gallon.”

“With Rivki feeding on me? I’m dizzy already,” Sally replied.

Ferdinand thought for a while, burping Rivki and rocking him. “I’m going to try prayer again. It helped a little earlier.”

300 for 30: Day 11

“He’s a very quiet baby and sleeps well – the lack of nappies is nice too - but there’s a reason I weaned my sons when their teeth started coming in,” Sally replied, passing Rivki to Ferdinand. Rivki gurgled, pleased, and latched onto his jugular with the speed and determination of a leech.

“Cute kid if you’re into the Gothic style,” Derrick-in-Taylor said. “It looks like Dianne won’t be coming, guys. She’s spending her plane ticket money on my bail.”

“What’d you do?” Nat asked, rubbing his temples.

“There weren’t any flights to Thailand - or even to places that would connect to Thailand - today, and I’m not very patient, and you know how I can control animals, and have you ever heard of Snakes on a Plane and thought to yourself that the terrorists lacked imagination?”

The glow faded from Taylor’s irises as she snapped, using her own unadulterated voice, “I love you, but sometimes you just make me so mad, Riquaniuvant.”

Nat posed the obvious question. “Can’t you – I mean, Derrick - bust yourself – uh, himself - out with those same powers?”

“Oh, right, he’d do that, and they’d call in the National Guard, and he’d use his powers against them, and they’d call in the Marines, and he’d use his powers against them, and meanwhile any shred of secrecy about the existence of magic, and with it the safety of Elves, demons, vampires, werewolves, seers – that goes down the tubes.” Taylor hugged herself tighter and jerked her head from side to side, as if trying to shake off reality. “No, love, you don’t understand. I trust these three under normal circumstances, no matter how hungry they get, but my period is due. It could start today, tomorrow, and then – yes I know what you’d like to do if something happened, but that wouldn’t fix it, would it? Idiot. Stupid romantic idiot.”

300 for 30: Day 10

“Well, spit-spot, up you get.” Glancing at Ferdinand and seeing he was decent, if scabbed and still disoriented, Nat hauled him to his feet and opened the bathroom door.

The room outside had steel door bolted from the outside, and a little locked hatch Ferdinand presumed was to pass in food for Taylor. A camera in the ceiling had a spiky cage around it to prevent them tampering. Taylor wore a mold-crusted towel wrapped around her and she was rocking back and forth on one of the twin mattresses lying on the floor. At least the lights were dim, and the stale air not as chilly as the other cells they’d experienced in this place. Sally had bundled Rivki in the second towel – a third was lying crumpled on mattress number two – and was perched in the edge of Taylor’s mattress, feeding Rivki blood from her neck. She kept clenching and unclenching her free hand. “There you are, Ferdinand. You look awful.”

“You look pretty uncomfortable yourself,” Ferdinand replied quietly, slumping onto the unoccupied excuse for a bed.

“Taylor, what’s wrong?” Nat realized what he’d just said, gave a bitter laugh, and then added, “I mean, besides the obvious?”

“I…” A sad orange glow lit up Taylor’s eyes, like a Jack-o-Lantern after the trick-or-treaters have gone home. Her voice took on a layered quality that Ferdinand recognized from the telepathic conference earlier. “It’s my fault. I was stupid.”

“Stop possessing Taylor, Derrick,” Nat said, lying down beside Ferdinand and looking hurt when Ferdinand scooted away. “It clearly strains her. She gets a doozy of a fever.”

“Sorry. She asked me to. She wanted to switch places a little, get some privacy. Cause, um, I got arrested.”

Sally muttered, “It just keeps getting better and better.”

“I can take Rivki,” Ferdinand told her, holding out his arms.

Raw Ghosts Chap. 12-13

For Sam's sake, and for the sake of anyone else who wants to read it, I'm putting my drafts of my The Raw Ghosts of Thailand expansion up here so she can enjoy and comment, as I've decided to not post anything new on Fictionpress. For those who don't know, our favorite virtuous vampires Ferdinand and Nat have been coping with Ferdinand's suicide attempt in Dad and I Are Sort of Human by going on a vacation to Thailand. Unfortunately, they've been captured by Well-Intentioned Extremist scientists studying vampires as a possible source of an AIDS cure. Taylor Calvin, who was studying abroad, gets caught up in it. One of the other vampire test subjects, Miriam, has died giving birth to a baby that has gestated for three years.

Chapter 12: Alone, and Yet, Alive

They awoke when the metal door clanged open, and a squadron of technicians and other professional types with rubber gloves and surgical masks came to collect Miriam. None of the vampires said a word, concentrating on cowering against the walls. Taylor squeezed Ferdinand’s hand so tightly it hurt.

Then one of the scientists tried to grab the baby. Nat clutched onto Rivki as best he could, but he was tasered into unconsciousness and the howling infant wrenched from his insensible grasp. Something hot and acrid coiled in Ferdinand’s chest, and he extricated his fingers from Taylor’s.
“No!” he shouted, bolting up and trying to take the baby back.

“We need to run tests,” the scientist replied, attempting to hold Rivki’s writhing little body in one arm and menacing Ferdinand with the other.

“You let Miriam die. You wanted us to kill Taylor. I don’t trust you.” His voice was very quiet and full of seething rage.

“I don’t want to hurt you unnecessarily.”

“Oh, I do.” The ensuing punch that he managed to land - just before he, too, was sent into the electrical pain and silence - broke the scientist’s nose.

****

Ferdinand woke in complete darkness. He tried to sit up and promptly hit his head. A second, more cautious attempt allowed him to sit as long as he maintained a stooped posture. The walls were all just barely beyond arms’ length away; fingertips came upon a small, drafty gap that he supposed was allowing him air. He felt himself to be naked. It was cold.

He figured out quickly that this was meant as punitive solitary confinement. They would let him out eventually to do more tests, presuming that he’d learned a lesson and would “behave” to their liking. It was just a matter of mental toughness for however long they decided he should stay there.

Ferdinand felt the familiar silvery taste of depression at the back of his throat and contemplated using his fangs to score distracting wounds on his arms. He decided to keep that in reserve, a cold comfort to be his companion. He hugged himself to preserve what little body heat he had.

At least it wasn’t blisteringly bright in here. He preferred darkness. It occurred to him that he could test to see whether it was day or night by whether he could turn into a bat. Right now he couldn’t. He remembered Nat’s story, last told when Dianne was still in high school, about how he amused himself while stowing away on a ship headed for Vietnam. Ferdinand wasn’t that good with scores of musicals, but in what he admitted were self-indulgent melancholic fits he had memorized many different poems. He needed to hear something besides silence if he was going to keep his mind together. Maybe Oscar Wilde’s “The Ballad of Reading Gaol”? Words had always comforted him, and when he was at a loss for his own he quoted writers more eloquent than he would ever be. He spoke very softly so that he wouldn’t get thirsty from even mild exertion.

Unable to remember the beginning, he started with what he felt was a relevant verse. A small part of him considered how poetic it was for him to suffer so elegantly – and a larger part of him kicked at that impulse as temptation to, yet again, wallow in misery. The first part did have a point in that there was very little he could do right now about helping his fellow prisoners and getting them out.

I never saw a man who looked
With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
Which prisoners call the sky,
And at every drifting cloud that went
With sails of silver by.

I only knew what hunted thought

Quickened his step, and why
He looked upon the garish day
With such a wistful eye;
The man had killed the thing he loved
And so he had to die.

Yet each man kills the thing he loves
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!

Some kill their love when they are young,
And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Lust,
Some with the hands of gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
The dead so soon grow cold.

He’d read that over and over in the first months after Selene died from the AIDS he had given her unwittingly, caught from a mugger she could have easily defended herself from, and in any case he could have incapacitated without biting. But this well-traveled line of thought was making his throat constrict and eyes sting, so he dove into the next verse that he could grasp.

Some love too little, some too long,
Some sell, and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
Yet each man does not die.

Confident that Nat wouldn’t hear him, Ferdinand whispered, “I wish you were here with me. I’d forgive you if you were here.”

He does not sit with silent men
Who watch him night and day;
Who watch him when he tries to weep,
And when he tries to pray;
Who watch him lest himself should rob
The prison of its prey.

He had to live, though. Taylor and Rivki needed him. He didn’t regret hitting that man. Dying wish. Woman’s dying wish. Innocent downtrodden victim woman’s dying wish dying dying cold OH GOD…

Ferdinand steadied his breathing, realizing that the tempting friendship of hysteria had nearly pulled him in. He wasn’t a wimp-lightweight-weenie-softie for having trouble this early, was he? It was because they took away his Zoloft. He needed his Zoloft.

He was technically on Sertraline – the generic form – but when he was growing up there had been commercials for Zoloft, with big puffy animals becoming sad and crooning because of clinical depression. After being prescribed Zoloft they bounced happily again. Those would make great pets. Not as great as Luna, but if you could ride them (and assuming they didn’t constantly need Zoloft/Sertraline to function, because he didn’t think Edofine would prescribe him enough for both of them), they would make wonderful steeds. Also they should be big enough to hug. Maybe Derrick Jangoral could invent some like he created Luna using magic? They should be called “zum-zums”.

Now he was getting silly. Hell, what if this broke his brain somehow? He was going to be a grandfather in a few months and he didn’t want to be a gibbering wreck by that point. Assuming of course that Taylor wasn’t delusional and she indeed could communicate with Derrick telepathically – what, even when they were on different continents? – and he and Dianne were indeed coming and they didn’t get in trouble or killed or lost or arrested how dare she endanger his granddaughter like that? At least her husband was steady. Matthew Gabriel Spiralli, a nice boy. Nice boy with a job that was going to keep him in Laconia so Dianne wouldn’t leave him until she died, which would still be leaving him but maybe not so soon or so bad or…

“Hey, Ferdinand? Getting the signal – signal you’re…in and out…hard uncoordinated…gotta unison…I we are is am having trouble…”

“What?” Ferdinand said aloud, pressing his ear against one of the walls. But he wasn’t hearing voices with his ears. It was like two people, a man and a woman, talking at the same time, except they weren’t talking but thinking really hard.

“You have to imagine shouting things aloud for this to work. And it’s not…can’t…long…not…argh!”

“Who is this?” Ferdinand thought as clearly and distinctly as he could.

Telepathy in all the fictional media to which Ferdinand was exposed was like having a telephone inside your head. This was more like hearing a very weak channel on the radio, constantly static-ful, hissing, cracking, swiping.

“Taylor and Derrick together – we aren’t – um…the signal’s weak…we’ve never done this before…just with each other…but your mind was crying out because you had no stimuli and we were able to get through together…two stations broadcasting…same time…Dianne says don’t give up up up up….”

“Are you okay?”

“They’re doing a behavioral experiment with Nat and Sally because they defended…nicer room…toilet and sink and I’ve Taylor’s getting gotten food…they bastards don’t swear want to see…if they those them stay hungry long enough will vampires…even good vampires…give in…I’ll have you know Derrick says if I Taylor dies or gets hurt your remains will never be found, Derrick! Don’t think things like that! Sorry dear I’m worried…lines you don’t cross…let’s not fight in front of Good idea...you’ll probably join us…Ferdinand remember that time you told me Taylor to fear the dark…now we I she tells will tell you not to run towards it and let it swallow you did me a favor now I will do you one…don’t despair …we can tell stories…don’t despair…”

“I’m not despairing.” Ferdinand realized that while he struggled to decipher meaning from the confusing communication, he was also chewing on his left thumb.

The “male” stream of thought, bright and forceful, that Ferdinand now knew was Derrick became much more prominent. “My friend, you’re naked and trapped in a completely dark box. If this isn’t upsetting you, you’ve either got a fetish or you’re lying.”

“Stop chewing on your thumb,” went Taylor’s weaker but steadier undercurrent, a swift-flowing stream. “I can’t keep this level of perception…”

They merged once more, sunlight glittering through rushing waves. “I Taylor can’t keep it up much longer and since Derrick I is am is doing this by possessing Taylor’s body to boost boost it’s terrifying Dianne and Nat and Sally it’s really disturbing them so we’ll take a break before Taylor I get a migraine…”
Then he was alone.

Chapter 13: Ferdinand’s Prayer

“God, if I get out of this sane and alive, I’ll convert to the first religion I come across unless it’s Scientology or something else equally questionable. I swear. I swear. How much time has it been? Can you hear me? Can anyone? I’m cold and I’m hungry and this was supposed to be my relaxing vacation, You damn it! I swear. I swear. I swear. Please oh please. I don’t want to die. I guess that can be counted as progress from being suicidal? I mustn’t laugh at that; it’s not really funny and I get a feeling that if I start laughing I’m never going to stop, seeing how hard it was to get myself to stop banging my head a while ago. I wonder how long that was. Can’t change into a bat, it’s not night yet. I’ve been here less than a day. Unless…no…that would be too horrible…what if a whole night passed in between attempts? How would I know? And are they going to let me out at all? You’d think I was a valuable specimen, as they would put it, but maybe I’m an example to the others. They could let me starve in here and put my corpse on a pike. How long does it take vampires to starve to death? Months? Years? It’s bad enough for an ordinary human being!

“Any non-psycho religion, God, I mean it. And I’ll adopt Rivki and give him a home, and give a bigger chunk of my income to charity…I just want to see my grandchild…I want to hold Dianne…I want to…not sure what I want to do with Nat, really…please God. Please oh please. I swear.”