Drawing Blood Read online

  HIGH PRAISE FOR

  DRAWING BLOOD

  “Beautiful … Heartbreaking … Seductive.”

  —Gauntlet

  by Poppy Z. Brite

  “A singularly talented chronicler of her generation.”*

  “As with many of today’s best writers of horror fiction, Brite focuses more on character interaction than on spooks. The prose in this book runs like a river; an astute observer of the human condition, Brite has given the haunted-house story a thorough remodeling. This is a sexy, classy, frequently funny side of psychological horror.”

  —Booklist

  “A spicy gumbo of subcultural hipness simmered in a cauldron of modern horror fiction … lusty stylings … emphasize[s] the diversity in everyday exotica while her sensual descriptions intoxicate the reader.… Every page of Brite’s work stresses the beautiful and heartbreaking strangeness of the world.”

  —Fangoria

  “Brite comes into her own in this second novel that should establish her as not only an adept in the horror genre, but also as a singularly talented chronicler of her generation.… Subplots and secondary characters … serve to evoke a certain 20-something, cyberpunk-era Zeitgeist that resonates with the concerns of contemporary youth.”

  —Publishers Weekly*

  “[Brite] developed the characters in Drawing Blood so well that by the time the book was done they felt like old friends.”

  —Charles de Lint

  THE CRITICS LOVE

  POPPY Z. BRITE’S PREVIOUS NOVEL

  LOST SOULS

  Nominated for the Bram Stoker Award

  for Best First Novel of 1992

  by the Horror Writers of America

  “A MAJOR NEW VOICE IN HORROR FICTION!”

  —Booklist

  “Poppy Z. Brite combines the sensibilities of a poet with the unflinching eye of a surgeon … not merely a rising literary star, she is a full-fledged supernova who may well banish paler constellations and make us all far too fond of the night.… This young writer takes us to places few will have the courage to visit and none would dare to tour alone. Brite’s vision is dark, deliriously erotic, sweetly savage and uniquely her own.”

  —Dan Simmons

  “Poppy Z. Brite strikes out into new uncharted lands with a bold original voice; if you don’t like her stories, then you haven’t read them.”

  —Kathryn Ptacek, Women of Darkness

  “Brite creates a convincing, evocative atmosphere in which youthful alienation meets gothic horror.… Lost Souls will surely be devoured by genre aficionados.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “The strengths of Lost Souls are evident from the start. Brite has a mastery of atmosphere and setting … her prose borders on the poetic, her dialogue rings of authenticity, giving a satisfying blend of surrealistic description and gritty realism.”

  —Today Newspapers

  Also by Poppy Z. Brite

  LOST SOULS

  WORMWOOD

  EXQUISITE CORPSE

  Published by

  Dell Publishing

  a division of

  Random House, Inc.

  New York, New York

  Copyright © 1993 by Poppy Z. Brite

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. For information address: Delacorte Press, New York, New York.

  The trademark Dell® is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-76829-2

  v3.1

  For

  Christopher DeBarr

  and

  David Ferguson,

  who knew when to be there

  and when to go away

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  First Page

  Twenty Years Later

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  One Month Later

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  A number of people have kindly assisted me with research on computer hacking. Greatest possible thanks to Bruce Sterling, Darren McKeeman, Forrest Cahoon, John Carter, and the digital underground at large. Any technical errors are my own.

  Thanks also to Connie B. Brite, Harlan Ellison, Dan Simmons, Brian Hodge, Jodie & Steve, Mary Fleener, Leslie Sternbergh, Steve Bissette, Don Donahue, Paul Mavrides, John & Craig, Linda Marotta & Kaz, Ed Bryant, Dan Matthews, Andrew Cayce, Kevin & Valerye, Darrell, Virginia, John “Foetus” Corry, Matthew Grasse, Ellen Datlow, F. Christian Grimm, Heidi Kirsch, Tom Montelone, J. R. McHone, Ian & Anne, Tigger Ferguson and 5-8, Wilum Pugmire, Tom Piccirilli, Bob Brite, the Go Figures, Devlin Thompson, Bob and Ron, Steve and Ghost, Miss Sunbeam, Evan Boorstyn, Brian Emrich, Miran Kim (for the wonderful art!) and Steven E. Johnson, Wayne Allen Sallee, Brooks Caruthers, St. Janor Hypercleets, Will O’Dobbs, the Rev. Ivan Stang, and “Bob” Dobbs himself. All of you helped in some way, whether you know it or not, whether you like it or not.

  To my editor, Jeanne Cavelos; my agents, Richard Curtis and Rich Henshaw; and to Monica Calheira Kendrick and Michael Spencer, as always.

  Major sources of inspiration: R. Crumb, Chester Brown, Julie Doucet, Tom Waits, William S. Burroughs, Trent Reznor, and Charlie Parker.

  “Art is not a mirror. Art is a hammer.”

  —phrase scrawled on a whiteboard in the Media Lab at MIT (home of the first computer hackers), attributed to Bertolt Brecht

  Missing Mile, North Carolina, in the summer of 1972 was scarcely more than a wide spot in the road. The main street was shaded by a few great spreading pecans and oaks, flanked by a few even larger, more sprawling Southern homes too far off any beaten path to have fallen to the scourge of the Civil War. The ravages and triumphs of the past decade seemed to have touched the town not at all, not at first glance. You might think that here was a place adrift in a gentler time, a place where Peace reigned naturally, and did not have to be blazoned on banners or worn around the neck.

  You might think that, if you were just driving through. Stay long enough, and you would begin to see signs. Literal ones like the posters in the window of the record store that would later become the Whirling Disc, but was now still known as the Spin’n’Spur. Despite the name and the plywood cowboy boot above the door, those who wanted songs about God, guns, and glory went to Ronnie’s Record Barn down the highway in Corinth. The Spin’n’Spur had been taken over, and the posters in the window swarmed with psychedelic patterns and colors, shouted crazy, angry words.

  And the graffiti: STOP WAR with a lurid red fist thrusting halfway up the side of a building, HE IS RISEN with a sketchy, sulkily sensual face beneath that might have been Jesus Christ or Jim Morrison. Literal signs.

  Or figurative ones, like the shattered boy who now sat with the old men outside the Farmers H
ardware Store on clear days. In another life his name had been Johnny Wiegers, and he had been an open-faced, sweet-natured kid; most of the old-timers remembered buying him a candy bar or a soda at some point over the years, or later, cadging him a couple of beers. Now his mother wheeled him down Firehouse Street every day and propped him up so he could hear their talk and watch the endless rounds of checkers they played with a battered board and a set of purple and orange Nehi caps. So far none of them had had the heart to ask her not to do it anymore.

  Johnny Wiegers sat quietly. He had to. He had stepped on a Vietcong land mine, and breathed fire, which took out his tongue and his vocal cords. His face was gone to unrecognizable meat, save for one eye glittering mindlessly in all that ruin, like the eye of a bird or a reptile. Both arms and his right leg were gone; the left leg ended just above the knee, and Miz Wiegers would insist on rolling his trouser cuff up over it to air out the fresh scar. The old-timers hunched over their checkers game, talking less than usual, glancing every now and then at the raw, pitiful stump or the gently heaving torso, never at the mangled face. All of them hoped Johnny Wiegers would die soon.

  Literal signs of the times, and figurative ones. The decade of love was gone, its gods dead or disillusioned, its fury beginning to mutate into a kind of self-absorbed unease. The only constant was the war.

  If Trevor McGee knew any of this, it was only in the fuzziest of ways, sensing it through osmosis rather than any conscious effort. He had just turned five. He had seen Vietnam broadcasts on the news, though his family did not now have a TV. He knew that his parents believed the war was wrong, but they spoke of it as something that could not be changed, like a rainy day when you wanted to play outside or an elbow already skinned.

  Momma told stories of peace marches she’d gone to before the boys were born. She listened to records that reminded her of those days, made her happy. When Daddy listened to his records now, they seemed to make him sad. Trevor liked all the music, especially the jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker, who Daddy always called Bird. And the song Janis Joplin sang with his daddy’s name in it. “Me and Bobby McGee.”

  Trev wished he could remember all the words, and sing the song himself. Then he could pretend it was just him and his daddy driving along this road, without Momma or Didi, just the two of them. Then he could ride up front with Daddy, not stuck in the back with Didi like a baby.

  He made himself stop thinking that. Where would Momma and Didi be, if not here? Back in Texas, or the place they had left two days ago, New Orleans? If he wasn’t careful he would make himself cry. He didn’t want his mother or his little brother to be in New Orleans. That city had given him a bad feeling. The streets and the buildings were dark and old, the kind of place where ghosts could live. Daddy said there were real witches there, and maybe zombies.

  And Daddy had gotten drunk. Momma had sent him out alone to do it, said it might be good for him. But Daddy had come back with blood on his T-shirt and a sick smell about him. And while Trev huddled in the hotel bed with his arms around his brother and his face buried in Didi’s soft hair, Daddy had put his head in Momma’s lap and cried.

  Not just a few tears either, the way he’d done when their old dog Flakey died back in Austin. Big gulping, trembling sobs that turned his face bright red and made snot run out of his nose onto Momma’s leg. That was the way Didi cried when he was hurt or scared really bad. But Didi was only three. Daddy was thirty-five.

  No, Trev didn’t want to go back to New Orleans, and he didn’t want Momma or Didi to be there either. He wanted them all with him, going wherever they were going right now. When they passed the sign that said MISSING MILE TOWN LIMITS, Trevor read it out loud. He’d learned to read last year and was teaching Didi now.

  “Great,” said Daddy. “Fucking great. We did better than miss the highway by a mile—we found the goddamn mile.” Trevor wanted to laugh, but Daddy didn’t sound as if he were joking. Momma didn’t say anything at all, though Trev knew she had lived around here when she was a little girl his age. He wondered if she was glad to be back. He thought North Carolina was pretty, all the giant trees and green hills and long, curvy roads like black ribbons unwinding beneath the wheels of their Rambler.

  Momma had told him about a place she remembered, though, something called the Devil’s Tramping Ground. Trevor hoped they wouldn’t see it. It was a round track in a field where no grass or flowers grew, where animals wouldn’t go. If you put trash or sticks in the circle at night, they would be gone in the morning, as if a cloven hoof had kicked them out of its way and they had landed all the way down in hell. Momma said it was supposed to be the place where the Devil walked round and round all night, plotting his evil for the next day.

  (“That’s right, teach them the fucking Christian dichotomy, poison their brains,” Daddy had said, and Momma had flipped him The Bird. For a long time Trevor had thought The Bird was something like the peace sign—it meant you liked Charlie Parker, maybe—and he had gone around happily flipping people off until Momma explained it to him.)

  But Trevor couldn’t blame even the Devil for wanting to live around here. He thought it was the prettiest place he had ever seen.

  Now they were driving through the town. The buildings looked old, but not scary like the ones in New Orleans. Most of these were built of wood, which gave them a soft-edged, friendly look. He saw an old-fashioned gas pump and a fence made out of wagon wheels. On the other side of the street, Momma spied a group of teenagers in beads and ripped denim. One of them, a boy, flipped back long luxuriant hair. The kids paused on the sidewalk for a moment before entering the record store, and Momma pointed them out to Daddy. “There must be some kind of a scene here. This might be a good place to stop.”

  Daddy scowled. “This is Buttfuckville. I hate these little Southern towns—you move in, and three days later everybody knows where you came from and how you make a living and who you’re sleeping with.” He caressed the steering wheel; then his fingers tightened convulsively around it. “I think we can make it through to New York.”

  “Bobby, no!” Momma reached over, put a hand on his shoulder. Her silver rings caught the sunlight. “You know the car can’t do it. Let’s not get stranded on the highway somewhere. I don’t want to hitch with the kids.”

  “No? You’d rather be stranded here?” Now Daddy looked away from the road to glare at Momma through the black sunglasses that hid his pale blue eyes, so like Trevor’s eyes. Didi had eyes like Momma’s, huge and nearly black. “What would we do here, Rosena? Huh? What would I do?”

  “The same thing you do anywhere. You’d draw.” Momma wasn’t looking at Daddy; her hand still rested on his shoulder, but her head was turned toward the window, looking out at Missing Mile. “We’d find a place to rent and I’d get a job somewhere. And you’d stay at home with the kids, and there’d be nowhere to get drunk, and you’d start doing comics again.”

  At one time Trev would have chimed in his support for Momma, perhaps even tried to enlist Didi’s help. He wanted to stay here. Just looking at the place made him feel relaxed inside, not cramped up and hurting the way New Orleans and sometimes Texas had made him feel. He could tell it made Momma happy too, at least as happy as she ever felt anymore.

  But he knew better than to interrupt his parents while they were “discussing.” Instead he stared out the window and hoped as hard as he could that they would stop. If only Momma needed cigarettes, or Didi had to go pee, or something. His brother was toying with the frayed cuff of his shorts, dreaming, not even seeing the town. Trev poked his arm. “Didi,” he whispered out of the corner of his mouth, “you need to pee again?”

  “Uh-uh,” said Didi solemnly, too loudly. “I peed last time.”

  Daddy slammed his hands against the wheel. “Goddammit, Trevor, don’t encourage his weak bladder! You know what it means if I have to stop the car every hour? It means I have to start it again too. And you know what starting the car does? It uses extra gas. And that gas costs money. So you tak
e your pick, Trev—do you want to stop and take a piss, or do you want to eat tonight?”

  “Eat tonight,” Trevor said. He felt tears trying to start in his eyes. But he knew that if he cried, Daddy would keep picking on him. He hadn’t always been like that, but he was now. If Trev stood up to Daddy and answered back—even if the answer was giving in—Daddy might be ashamed and leave him alone.

  “Okay, then, leave Didi alone.” Daddy made the car go faster. Trevor could tell Daddy hated the little town as much as he and Momma liked it. Didi, as usual, was lost in space.

  Daddy wouldn’t stop on purpose now, not for any reason. Trevor knew the car was going to break down soon; at least, Momma said so. If that was true, he wished it would go ahead and break down here. He thought a place like this might be good for Daddy if he would only give it a chance.

  “GodDAMN!” Daddy was wrestling with the shift stick, slamming it with the heel of his hand. Something in the guts of the car banged and shuddered horribly; then greasy black smoke came streaming around the edges of the hood. The car coasted to a stop on the grassy shoulder of the road.

  Trevor felt like crying again. What if Daddy knew he had been wishing for the car to break down right that very second? What would Daddy do? Trevor looked down at his lap, noticed how tightly his fists were clenched against the knees of his jeans. Cautiously he opened one hand, then the other. His fingernails had made stinging red half-moons in the soft flesh of his palms.