Author's note, 1999: This story is a good example of why I don't write more N&NP fiction:
can you say 'syrupy'? Can you say 'abuse of perfectly good Hammerstein lyrics'?
Lyrics are all by Oscar Hammerstein II and come from 'What's The Use Of Wond'rin''
of the musical "Carousel"(copyright 1945), except for the last verse, which is why the
Poetry Police are banging down my door right now.)
Muchas gracias to Annie Raper and Cousin Jules for beta reading despite the lack
of Nunkies.
******************************************************************
Song Challenge: This Perfect Carousel
Copyright 1997
by Bonnie Rutledge
Another night, another crime, another criminal brought to justice.
Nick slammed the refrigerator closed with his back, hugging the bounty to his
chest. The glass of the bottle was cool and solid to the touch.
Lifeless, like him.
Nick choked out a short laugh, then continued to stare wonderingly at the green
golem. They were two of a kind - Nick and the bottle - inanimate objects acting as
receptacles of untapped passions.
He fixed his gaze upon the painting above the fridge, his distrusting eyes devouring
the lines and shadows. The portrait spoke to him on several levels. There was hunger -
hunger that cut at his heart. It was frightening how sharp the pain could feel in
something so tired and useless.
The image demonstrated bliss, as well. The overwhelming emotions from the blood
rang poignantly through the red brushstrokes of the subject's mouth. It was life
transformed into a million points of color and light, singing the song that made the
feeding worthwhile.
It was a monstrous composition. The portrait mirrored a parasite drunk on someone
else's life, someone else's misery and joy. Sometimes Nick saw his own face in those
oils - like tonight. Normally he didn't spare the likening a second thought. The shame
and distaste made up a small fraction of the self-doubt he nursed every night of his unlife.
When the face didn't frighten him, when it didn't make him turn away in disgust,
but teased and tantalized him instead, that was cause for alarm.
Nick felt alarmed.
He bit, pulled, and spit the bottle's cork the way of the sink. He took one
enthusiastic gulp, followed by a careful gulp, then stopped.
It was simply a habit. He wasn't really hungry. The events of the few hours before
had silenced those urges for a while.
Nick absent-mindedly left the bottle by the sink with a clatter while he mulled
over the mysteries of ways and means. His thoughts spun a vigorous web - what exactly
had happened this night that made him feel differently?
******************************************************************
Jean Hammier had murdered twelve people over the past three months. Each had been
beaten, then left inside a locked refrigerator or freezer to suffocate. The youngest
victim had been six, the oldest eighty-one.
Nick thought. Hammier had attempted to make
him the thirteenth victim, but bad luck and supernatural strength had laid waste to that plan.
Nick escaped the chamber easily. As he broke the chains that wound about the appliance,
he silently asked for forgiveness from the twelve who had not been so fortunate, who had only
been mortal. He pictured their frozen bodies at each crime scene. Their permanently crouched
positions had come from rigor mortis, not the cold. Their fingernails had broken. Their
fists had become raw from pounding on the door while they begged for their freedom from
anyone who would listen.
Their eyes haunted Nick the most. Each pair bulged with horror, the membranes bloodshot,
the expressions desperate. The victim's eyes frightened Nick, even though he'd experienced
the stare of the dead thousands of times. He was frightened because of the whispers in his
head - a low, cautioning mantra that he heard again and again - a voice that stank of
forfeited dreams and faithlessness.
He registered these words as he slipped through the shadowed rooms of the restaurant
where Hammier had left him to die. Schanke didn't know where his partner had gone (*again*).
No one would know where to find him, and there was no backup waiting outside. As a vampire,
he could take advantage of Hammier's assault, use it as irrefutable evidence that this man
was the killer Metro Police sought. As a mortal, he could have died - cold, alone, and
terrified - waiting only for discovery by an under-chef the next afternoon when the walked
into the freezer vault.
Nick had recognized Hammier's steps and followed. He hid, becoming nothing but a shadow
behind the dining room's lobster tank, when Hammier turned to look behind.
The thought of his own death made Nick angry. The thought of the widowed
great-grandmother's death, someone barely strong enough to climb down her own steps for
the morning paper, caused Nick's pupils to lighten and rage into a yellow-green. The
thought of the young boy's death, the destruction of something so fresh and new, had Nick
aching for revenge. Everything felt hot and red.
When he collared Hammier from behind, the man's sudden rush of adrenaline struck
Nick deeply. He felt the killer's blood accelerate and heard the crescendo of his beating
heart. In a swell of fury and excitement, Nick couldn't resist. He succumbed. He fed off
human flesh.
The taste had struck Nick as foul, yet intoxicating. There was comfort to be found
in such a permanent form of retribution. It left no worries of procedural loopholes or
probation setting that criminal free. For Nick, it was justice.
He was satisfied.
In the aftermath, Nick had gazed at the corpse strewn at his feet for several minutes.
Nick crouched to pick up the body, and Hammier's eyes stared at him blankly.
Nick thought abruptly. He then shoved his conscience aside, banishing
it to a dark corner of his reason. He couldn't drop the dead man off at the morgue and expect
Natalie to handle its disposal. She would be shocked, disappointed, and Nick knew he couldn't
bear to see those emotions in her blue eyes.
Besides - she wasn't even working. Nat had taken off from work for a peaceful night.
Nick grimaced. He was on his own. He needed to get rid of the body quickly and move on...
******************************************************************
Move on?
Nick sat at the piano and picked out a flat, melancholy tune with the ebony keys. Had
he come to such a decision? Did he intend to pack up and move on, simply leaving his quest
for mortality behind with any dust on the floor? Going seemed such a cowardly action when
he stated it so plainly.
Didn't he have obligations? Friends counting on him? Didn't he...?
Nick sighed and rose from the bench. He had seven hundred plus years of living as a
vampire, and too few otherwise. What was the use of wondering about a few swift years of
mortality compared to what he had experienced already?
Why was he so centered upon trading a dozen lifetimes spent in the company of the men
and women who shaped history, music, science, and the arts for a chance to catch the common
cold?
Nick left his loft to prowl the streets of Toronto during the last hours before dawn.
He planned to make a clean break and vanish with the sunset. He would spend the day making
all the arrangements for storing his things until he decided where to land next.
He wouldn't say goodbye in person, but he would send a note in a month or two to explain
his departure to Natalie. She wouldn't understand, but perhaps it would be better for her to
think of him with anger. That way, Natalie could move on, too.
He hadn't meant to walk her direction, but Nick's wandering footsteps subconsciously
led him closer until he stood below her living room window. The room's lighting appeared
to fluctuate. Nick heard music playing softly and voices with exaggerated accents. Natalie
was watching television.
His feet left the ground, and Nick floated level with the window to catch one last
glimpse of her. It would be a final and silent farewell. Natalie was wrapped in a blanket
on her couch, only the collar and cuffs of her sweatsuit peeking out from the folds of
woven blue cotton.
It was too disturbing to watch her, and Nick prepared to turn away, but he realized
that Natalie's hands were strangling a box of tissue set in the middle of her lap. She
was crying.
It was a methodical, resigned weeping on Natalie's part. She was watching a movie,
and whatever was happening on screen affected her strongly. Nick let his ears focus on
the dialogue, curious to discover what could make Nat so emotional.
It was a musical, one he recognized. The words tapered into silence, then there was
a swell of music followed by the yearning words of a soprano.
"Oh, what's the use of wond'rin'
if he's good or if he's bad,
he's your fella,
and you love him -
That's all there is to that."
Natalie moved - her box of tissue was empty - and Nick watched her scurry frantically
into the kitchen for a new supply, her squigy-bound ponytail bouncing after her in echo.
The song continued without her.
"Common sense may tell you
that the ending will be sad,
and now's the time to break
and run away."
Natalie rushed back from the kitchen, tissueless, but holding an extremely large wad
of paper napkins instead. She stopped in the middle of the floor as the singing went on,
apparently not wanting the noise of her footsteps to mar the sound.
"Oh, what's the use of wond'rin'
if the ending will be sad,
He's your fella,
and you love him -
There's nothing more to say."
The bridge to the song began, but it was muffled as Natalie let out a small, ladylike
wail, then surrendered to a flurry of nose-blowing and sniffles. Nick felt his lips draw
into a smile at the sight of her curls bouncing with the effort, then his eyes narrowed as
he noticed the wiggle of her hips.
Natalie fell silent as she heard another verse begin. She dropped to the floor to
sit cross-legged, hugged the stiff mound of napkins to her chest, and listened entranced
as the words went on.
"So when he wants your kisses,
you will give them to the lad,
And anywhere he leads you
you will walk,
And any time he needs you
you'll go runnin' there like mad.
You're his girl,
and he's your fella -
And all the rest is talk."
The music came to a close with the hum of strings, and Natalie released a heartfelt sigh.
Nick's feet touched the ground. Sunrise was in half an hour - he ought to leave. He had
to leave now.
He found himself climbing her stairs instead. There was a lengthy pause before Natalie
responded to his knock. When she drew the door open, she looked flustered, and still tried
to doctor her puffy eyes and red nose with her makeshift kleenex.
"Nick! What are you doing here?"
"I guess I can't spend too much time away from you - I'd miss you."
Natalie's lips spread into a wide grin. "Come on in," she said. "You're going to make
me all bleary-eyed again if you keep talking like that. I had the brilliant idea of renting
'Carousel' on video."
"Why? Isn't it sad?"
"Um - yes. I've only watched it - oh, maybe twenty times, and I never survive without
bawling like a baby." Natalie curled onto her sofa once more and began to wrinkle an unused
napkin as she explained. "I cry and cry, but I still find it uplifting. There's love,
disappointment, betrayal, and tragedy, but in the end the story's about hope and faith."
"You'll never walk alone," Nick echoed.
"Well...yeah!" Natalie smiled, then glanced out the window. "Isn't it about time for
the sun to come up?"
"I thought I could spend the day here with you - if you don't mind."
"Why would *I* mind? You're the one who has to watch me act sappy over a movie!"
Nick wrapped an arm about her shoulders. "I don't mind. Did I miss any good parts?"
"Yes, but don't worry - the best is yet to come," Natalie said.
Nick watched Natalie's glowing face as she hit 'play' on her VCR controller, and watched
the story with rapt attention. He lightly curled a strand from her ponytail around his finger,
then whispered, "You're right. The best is yet to come."
He shut the blinds, then held Natalie close as she sobbed through the rest of the film.
His thoughts, though, formed his own song.
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The End
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