A dark shadow passed over the light and blocked the center of the doorway. A tall hat perched atop the figure's head and a long walking cane rested in one hand. I stumbled, tripped, and went to my knees as dark dread gripped my heart and squeezed. The very air seemed to frost in my lungs.
The figure held out its hands. A woman screamed in agony.
"No!" I yelled. "Stop it!" But I couldn't move. I couldn't make him go away. I was only—
My cell phone rang and I jerked awake. My ears hurt. My head hurt. Every part of me was in raw agony. I pushed myself off the floor, pulled the phone from my pocket, and stared with bleary eyes at the screen. It was Crye. I answered.
"Your appointment is at ten AM.," she said in a voice entirely too chipper. "Don't be late!"
"Isn't it a school day?"
"Teachers' work day. Don't you remember the announcement?"
"Oh. Okay. I'll see you soon." I pushed myself up onto my knees. What a nightmare. It had to have been a nightmare. Vampires did not exist. Hot girls that approached sweaty smelly fat kids after a workout also did not exist. I was even surer of that. And what was with the pregnant woman and the screaming baby? Maybe Stacey had slipped me some heroin.
Besides the agony from yesterday's workout, I felt pretty normal. I stood up. A wave of dizziness almost took me back down and my foot throbbed. I staggered into the bathroom to get ready. I couldn't believe I had a hair styling appointment today. Simply thinking of "my hair" and "style" in the same sentence was a new concept for me. I couldn't remember the last time I'd had it cut.
As I showered, images of Stacey with her amber eyes and fangs flashed through my mind. Not real, not real, not real. I got out of the shower and regarded my long wet mop of a hairdo in the mirror. Then I noticed hand-shaped bruises the color of rotten blueberries on my biceps. I looked at my foot. A nasty greenish bruise covered my toes. Last night had happened. Stacey really did exist. Maybe if I went about business as usual, I'd forget about the whole thing and never have to face a hot vampire woman again.
Besides, today I would start the transformation that would leave me a different man—an improved man. A non-feasted-upon-by-vampires man. An undercurrent of apprehension gripped my nerves, but I ignored it. That was the stale old me talking, the version that would be making love to his hand for the rest of his life if I didn't change. It seemed almost funny I was more afraid of getting a haircut than the petrifying night before. The human mind is apparently capable of blanking out those things too terrible to behold.
After removing the furniture blocking my bedroom door and the front door, I looked for Dad in the usual places—the couch and his bedroom—but he was nowhere to be found. I wondered if I'd locked him out of the house with my furniture blockade, but it appeared he'd never returned home last night. Oddly enough, his car was still in the driveway, so I took it and found the salon in East Atlanta Village, a neighborhood still struggling between trendy and gangster. A cute girl in jeans and a tight pink T-shirt sat at the reception area. I stared at myself in the mirror on the wall behind her so I wouldn't stare at her really nice breasts. They weren't huge, but the tight fabric of her shirt gave them the extra oomph to make me a fan for life. Even the hopeless romantic in me couldn't resist the lure of female anatomy.
She smiled at me. "Hey Justin. Be just a few minutes."
I was surprised the receptionist knew me on sight. It certainly boosted my ego a bit. After all, she didn't seem to have fangs. But when I opened my mouth to hit on her, nothing came out. My vocal cords locked up. The large mirror behind the desk showed me just how stupid I looked with my mouth hanging open. The girl raised an eyebrow.
"Don't be nervous. I told Mom you needed all the help you could get."
Recognition dawned on my sluggish brain. My eyes widened. "Crye?" Without the piercings, makeup, or Goth clothing she looked normal. Pretty cute, in fact. "I didn't realize it was you." I grimaced. Nice job, idiot.
She smiled and shook her head. "Mom won't let me wear my Goth clothes here. Too many people wouldn't understand."
"Well, she's the boss," I said lamely trying to recover.
A tall brunette with an imperious gaze, long legs, and epic cleavage—yes, I'm obsessed with boobs—came to the front. She pursed her lips and stared at me. "You were right, dear. This one needs serious work." She spun on her heel and hooked a finger over her shoulder at me. "This way."
"Ooh this is gonna be fun," Crye said, her violet eyes sparkling. I stared at her eyes, wondering why she was still wearing her colored contacts without her Goth garb. "Better hurry," she said. "Mom's impatient."
I hurried back to the chair where her mom waited, towel in hand. The place was full of women in chairs and mostly male stylists molding hair and chatting away. A cross between ammonia and roses scented the air, no doubt a toxic cloud from hair chemicals.
"Thanks for doing this, Ms., um…"
"Call me Leia."
"Thanks, Leia." It felt strange calling someone's mom by her first name. And she looked so young too. She and Crye could almost be sisters. I forced my eyes from her cleavage and sat in the chair. Leia spent the next several minutes washing my hair, then shooed me over to a salon chair. I took a seat and stared at the mirror. My hands trembled as I thought about the irrevocable change I was about to commit. It wasn't too late to get up and run. Leia's hand clamped onto my shoulder.
Now it was too late.
Her hand on my shoulder reminded me uncomfortably of Stacey. My neck felt very warm where she'd licked it, like that hot ice stuff athletes slather on their sore muscles. I hoped it wasn't infected. I stared at the right side of my neck in the mirror. It looked redder than the moon-white skin around it.
Leia left for a moment then returned with a spray bottle. She stood behind me and appraised my hair with an arched eyebrow. Movies depict major lifestyle changes as quick and easy with a montage set to an upbeat pop tune. In real life, they're a lot more traumatic, time consuming, and boring. That, and it takes a lot longer than one Lady Gaga song to get the job done.
"Elyssa seems to think you'd look better with spiky hair," Leia said after staring at my mop.
"Elyssa?" My eyes met hers and I realized with a start that her eyes were violet just like Crye's.
"My daughter. I suppose you know her by that ridiculous Goth name."
"Crye?"
As if on cue, Crye appeared at my shoulder and looked me over appraisingly. "Dye his hair black and go with long spikes."
Leia pursed her lips and stared for a moment. "Do you want him to look good or maniacal?"
"Both."
"Um, can we go more for the good look?" I asked.
Crye grabbed my shoulder. "Just go with it, you big scaredy-cat."
"I don't want to look stupid," I said. I almost said "freakish" but I didn't want to hurt Crye's feelings.
Leia raised an eyebrow. "Let's begin, shall we? I have a full schedule today."
I nodded. Crye went back to the front desk. Leia started by lopping off most of my hair with scissors. I closed my eyes and tried to steady my breathing so I didn't whimper. After she cut my hair, she dyed it black with something that reeked like burning tires and barf.
Some time later I stared at the finished product in the mirror. I hardly recognized myself, aside from the pale chubby face and thick glasses which were dead giveaways. Instead of a nerdy fat kid, I looked like a cool chubby kid. Leia had cut my hair a little shorter than the six inches Crye wanted, but I was secretly relieved the new 'do wasn't too outlandish.
"Not bad," Crye said when she came over to inspect the new me. "New glasses, new clothes, and you'll almost be respectable."
"I was meaning to ask about that," I said, looking at Leia. No way in hell I'd take fashion advice from Crye. "Do you have any opinion about what kind of clothes I should buy?"
"I always have an opinion, child," Leia said. "But I have too much to do to chat about clothes." She whisked away to speak with a woman who was waiting in the front lounge.
"I'll help you with clothes," Crye said, glancing at a pink Hello Kitty watch on her wrist. "I get out of here in an hour."
"I'm not really into Goth stuff," I said.
"It's an identity," she said, "not a fashion choice. I would never force that on you."
"Oh, well that's cool. What kind of clothes do you have in mind?"
"I asked Renaldo to help." She pointed to a young male stylist who was laughing and gesturing in the exaggerated way I'd seen only gay men do.
"You asked a gay guy to help me?"
"Hey, you want fashion advice, gay guys are the best."
"Maybe for picking out curtains," I grumbled. Renaldo looked to be in his early twenties. He wore a baby-blue button-up shirt tucked into dark jeans that a wild animal must have savaged given the rips in the fabric on the thighs. A dark red tie and blue vest completed the outfit. I had to admit it did look pretty spiffy in a casual sort of way. His brown hair was short and spiked, kind of like mine, and I wondered what that said about me. Not that it made any difference since I was officially a social pariah.
"He's hot and fashionable," Crye said. "Too bad he's not into girls."
"Wow," I said. "Did you just call a guy 'hot'? Never expected that from you."
"I am a girl, stupid. And I'm not batting for the other team, if that's what you were thinking."
She wore way too much pink to be a lesbian or a Goth, for that matter. Not that I was an expert on either. I glanced at the approximate location on her nose where she usually wore a stud, wondering how large a hole those things left, but her skin looked perfect, unbroken. I couldn't spot any holes in her lips either. The studs must have teensy-tiny pointy things on them. For some reason that made me feel better. It'd be a waste to mar such great skin with a bunch of holes.
