An Apple for the Creature

Her program bio described her as a supernatural researcher, though I didn’t know if that meant she researched supernatural creatures, conducted research by supernatural means, or both. The first presentation was the aforementioned discussion on why some biting victims became werewolves and some didn’t, which was interesting, and the nasty slideshow didn’t stop us from enjoying a hefty mid-morning snack.

Then Dr. Hogencamp took the stage again for the second session. “We have a very special guest today. Captain Robert Antonelli, a former ferryboat captain from my hometown, is going to talk about his experiences.”

She stepped back from the podium and waved her hand, inviting the speaker to come forward. At first I thought the man had walked through an entrance in the back wall I hadn’t seen, but no, he’d walked through the wall. In fact, I could see the wall through him—he was translucent.

“Jesus,” I heard somebody behind me say. “It’s a ghost.”

I tried to look blasé, as if I encountered ghosts all the time, but the fact was I hadn’t even known there were ghosts. I was too new to the werewolf world to know which other supernatural denizens actually existed.

The ghost was tall, though hunched with age, with a weatherworn face and a bit of a potbelly. Though the nautical cap on his scraggly gray hair could have been from any age, his khakis and polo shirt were modern, so I guessed he hadn’t been dead that long.

“You can call me Captain Bob,” the ghost said, his voice surprisingly normal. He surveyed us as if looking over a particularly unimpressive batch of naval recruits. “The doc here invited me to come tell you what it means to be a dead man walking. Or floating.” He slowly lifted from the floor until the tips of his deck shoes were at the height of the microphone.

When he was satisfied he’d caused enough of a stir, he settled back down again on the floor of the platform and went on to describe his life after death, or maybe instead of death.

Ghostly abilities were pretty much as advertised: floating, walking through walls, making unearthly noises, appearing and disappearing. Some ghosts were big on haunting, ranging from being tied to a location but able to interact with people to just replaying a moment in time. Captain Bob seemed disdainful of what he called anchored spirits—he said he went wherever he wanted and could even appear however he wanted, as long as it was a look he’d had in life. He demonstrated by changing shirts and pants. On the other side of the spectrum, he seemed embarrassed to admit that he couldn’t affect the physical world the way some ghosts could—I had a hunch he would have enjoyed playing poltergeist-y tricks.

After he covered the basics, he invited questions, the first of which was from wolves afraid they were being secretly spied on by ghosts. Captain Bob leered a bit for form’s sake, but pointed out that werewolves could see ghosts and that there weren’t many free-range ghosts around.

Then came the question that caused me so much trouble. Shannon, a gal who liked the same TV shows that I did, said, “Can you tell us how you died?” I’d been wondering the same thing, but thought it might be impolite to ask—supernatural life has situations that aren’t discussed by Miss Manners.

Captain Bob said, “I’m happy to tell you—I want to put it out as a warning.”

The ghost’s appearance shifted, and instead of a normal see-through man, he looked like something out of a splatterpunk flick. His throat was so thoroughly savaged that his head was barely attached, and gore drenched his clothes. Only the lack of scent kept the auditorium full of werewolves from reacting to that much blood.

Captain Bob spoke, which just seemed wrong given the horrible damage. “This is how I looked just before I died. If you don’t remember anything else about this session, I want you to remember that this is what a vampire does to people.”

I froze, and I could tell most of the eyes in the auditorium were on me.

Being dead didn’t mean that Captain Bob couldn’t sense awkwardness, and when he looked at Dr. Hogencamp for an explanation, she whispered something in his ear. “For the love of God, what kind of woman would live with a vampire?” he demanded.

“That would be me,” I said.

The people to either side shrank away as Captain Bob wafted in my direction, his head bobbling along. I wouldn’t have expected werewolves to be so squeamish.

“Are you insane?” he asked.

“Is that a rhetorical question? Because if I were, I probably wouldn’t know it.”

“Then why are you living with a monster?”

“I’m a werewolf and you’re a ghost. It’s pretty much monster central casting around here.”

“There’s monsters, and then there’s monsters,” he said, as if that meant something. “How long do you think it’ll be before that bloodsucker does something like this to you?”

What was I supposed to say? A week from next Friday? “I’ve already been bitten almost that badly.”

“You see? Vampires are killers!”