All the Bullets are Silver

Isabelle’s admissions portfolio is nearly ready. Brooke has the family narrative, the test scores, and the letters of recommendation. These came from Isabelle’s godmother, who runs a marketing firm, and from their pastor at First Presbyterian. Brooke wrote the third letter herself, in the voice of Isabelle’s nanny, Ellen, and had her sign it. The first two letters will provide gravitas. The third will be personal. (Brooke did a search for “words with associations of warmth,” and she’s attached photos of Ellen playing with Isabelle to testify to their embrace of diversity.) Tomorrow, they see their doctor to sign off on Isabelle’s medical forms, and then Brooke can click “submit application” and address the invites for the champagne brunch they’ll host in celebration of Isabelle’s acceptance to the Knoll School.

John walks into the kitchen and opens the fridge, stocked with craft beer. “Want one, Hon?” He has four cabinets open, looking for a snack.

“No thanks, baby” says Brooke. She presents her husband with her slow, winsome smile, betraying zero irritation. John never remembers that she hates beer.

“Where’s Izzy?”

“Ellen took her to the park.”

John takes his drink into his study, and Brooke closes the cabinets, including the one equipped with the easy-open gun safe required by law. She has to have it; it does not have to be visible.

Brooke has a thin face, a thin nose, and a golden chignon. She despises those signs other women hang in their kitchens, signs that say things like “blessed,” but she surveys her shining marble countertops and knows she is blessed. Brooke’s place is her rightful place, which is why the phone call from the Knoll School is an irritant but not a barrier. Apparently, they must see a board-certified physician for the exam required for three-year-old Isabelle’s preschool admission. The board of directors insists.

Brooke stands at the threshold to the pediatrician’s waiting room. There’s a big public health poster on the wall:

KNOW THE SIGNS.

ALL OUR CHILDREN ARE AT STAKE.

THIS PRACTICE IS IN COMPLIANCE WITH ALL PROVISIONS OF THE TOLERATION ACT OF 1982.

She has never allowed herself to be drawn inside a place so porous and sticky. A receptionist sees her, smiles, says, “come in.” Brooke avoids contact with any surface. Isabelle struggles against her tight hold, but Brooke ignores her; she must keep a strict eye out lest some horror in the room leap to attack. A stain on the puce carpet seems to grow, threatens to rise and leech onto her trim ankle. Brooke tries to breathe, to admire the aquarium, but she can smell the algae, the fish food, and the rot. She thinks to envy the receptionist behind her glass barrier, but both sides of the glass are filthy. Cartoons blare, and the buzz from the fish tank grows. Brooke realizes her hair is much too loose. She should have pulled it tighter. If she could, she’d make it so nothing could move; she’d freeze everything and become cool, smooth stone. Thank God her face, at least, cannot move and so cannot betray her.

A short male nurse, wearing crocs and lavender scrubs printed with teddy bears, says, “Isabelle?” He checks his clipboard. “Isabelle M.?”

Brooke follows him to room three, gives mechanical answers to conventional questions. Yes, a term birth. Vaginal. Seven pounds. No significant illnesses. She nursed for a year. She states all this without shudder. No. No vaccines. Yes, she is very small.

“There are a lot of petite women in my family.”

The nurse types. Brooke cannot see the screen. He says, “Dr. Singh should be with you shortly.”

Isabelle tries to wiggle free of her arms. “Sit tight,” Brooke hisses.

With the doctor, her child is sunshine. She touches her nose and displays her reflexes and chatters her charming chatter. “She’s a lovely child, Mrs. Mattson.” The doctor is surveying her notes, looking troubled. “I do want to keep an eye on her growth and run some blood tests.” Brooke hands over the forms from the Knoll School. “I’m sure you already know this, but I can’t sign off until we begin to catch up on her vaccines. Herd immunity is essential for public health.”

Brooke pictures Isabelle laid amongst a pile of blind piglets like squirming guts. Brooke slow smiles. “That’s not right. We needed to see a conventional doctor, but we have a religious exemption.”

Dr. Singh shakes her ungrayed head. “I’m sorry Mrs. Mattson, the school requires compliance.” The doctor brings her too-thick brows together, lets her voice slide to censor. “Frankly, I’m afraid we have bigger things to worry about. Is there anything in your history that you haven’t disclosed?”

Brooke’s insides seize. You can deny a thing all you want, but the monster under the bed won’t stay docile forever. Brooke will not unravel. She gathers her daughter and her designer bag, pulling Isabelle through the waiting room. The receptionist taps on the glass to draw Brooke’s attention. “Mrs. Mattson? I have your receipt.” The woman lowers her voice. She slips a card between the papers she hands through the opening in the glass. “There’s ways around. Give that number a call.” Brooke is careful not to touch that card, lest it set her skin on fire. She is more careful not to let it fall, as she tucks the papers into her bag and zips it tight.

Brooke leaves Isabelle with Ellen and goes to Pilates, then takes a run. She trims her rosebushes and polishes her countertops. She showers, exfoliating like mad, and puts on a dress John likes. She goes outside to check the mailbox. It’s then that she realizes the new neighbor is one of them. She’s met a few before. There was an incident in college, which she doesn’t care to think about, in which her considerable powers over men had not been considered. Though they’ve been out in the open since before Brooke was born, there’s still a thrill in meeting one. She supposes there are more of them in the city, but here, in her orderly suburb, they’re rare.

Brooke is conscious of the late afternoon sun on her hair and the advantages her legs and skirt lend, each to the other. She slow smiles and extends a hand. “I’m Brooke. Welcome to the neighborhood.” The roundness of his belly, cheek, and eyes is matched by the frames of his plastic glasses and his bald head. Brooke feels confident he’s never gotten attention from a woman like her, but he shakes her hand easily, looks her in the eye.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Roger.”

Her first impression—dad bod and bad glasses—shifts. You can hide a lot behind a front of unassuming normalcy.

“Just you in that big house? Don’t hesitate to let me know if you need anything.”

Roger stays steady. “Thanks, that’s very nice of you.”

“Are you new to town?”

“I am.”

Brooke suppresses a shiver, remembering the card in her bag. “I think you’ll find this is a friendly area. Such nice parks and shops and such. And very welcoming.” Perhaps that was the wrong thing to say. Did it imply he might be anything but welcome?

But Roger smiles. “If folks around here are anything like you, I’m sure that’s true.”

Brooke is not expecting John, but he comes in while she’s checking Isabelle’s test results on her laptop. His brow furrows even as he stoops to kiss her. She accepts the kiss without shudder.

“What’s going on?” says John.

Brooke knows when other routes have closed before her; she turns the laptop so John can see the bloodwork results. He takes his time.

“For Izzy?” He’s puzzled.

“Who else?”

“It’s not possible. We’ve never gotten anything but healthy reports from her doctor.”

“This is from a different doctor.” Brooke’s explanation is gently molded. It doesn’t name all the things she’s concealed, but John is no fool.

“I’m to understand that our child has never seen a board-certified physician. That you’ve been taking her to some kind of hocus-pocus witchery since the day she was born.”

Brooke does not flinch. She doesn’t hide things from John because she’s afraid of him. She does so for simple convenience. Usually, this is convenient for John as well. “I don’t have to tell you that you’ve never asked. That you’ve never taken her to an appointment.” She knows this will evoke significant guilt in John. She sees it, in his eyes, as soon as her words land. John has no reason to feel guilty; they have separate roles. John makes the money, and Brooke wraps the money around herself, around their daughter, around their home, just the way John likes it.

John sags. “There’s nothing wrong with her. No sign that anything is wrong.”

Brooke says nothing. Maybe she avoided conventional doctors so she wouldn’t have to face this possibility. Maybe she willed the signs away, but John never bothered to learn to see them.

Brooke loves a ladder, a merit badge, a clear progression. Since before Isabelle was born, Brooke has lived to get her child into the Knoll School. She’s pictured Isabelle wearing their tailored uniforms and pictured her at her high school graduation, in white, arms loaded with roses. She’s fixed her eyes on Knoll as the key to acceptance letters from elite colleges, the key to the pride of unlocking each future step on the journey. It’s surprisingly easy to let all that go.

The rest isn’t easy. Society is organized to prevent what her life will soon become. Isabelle will not grow. Her cells will turn, one on the other, sucking each other dry. The gut level marrow level myelin level blood red level battle will advance inside her daughter’s little body, the process the opposite of that which makes for immortality, the horror transmitted through maternal cells damaged when one of them took what was not given. Isabelle will begin to flag; her chatter will slow, and her muscles will rot. She’ll deflate like an old balloon, found behind the sofa months after the party, rubbery and weak.

John will be so caring. Brooke can already see the other moms watching with hungry, approving eyes as he lifts her from car to stroller, stroller to car. They’ll see her too, when Brooke’s vigilance and purchasing power can no longer substitute for something more. Isabelle’s face will wither, while Brooke’s remains immovable, but Brooke’s heart has long been a deflated balloon, hissing as it leaks.

She locks the bathroom door, unzips her bag, and gingerly extracts the card. It’s printed with an image of a barbershop pole and a phone number. In pencil, the receptionist has scribbled, “tell them Stacia sent you. Call after midnight.” Brooke rips the cheap cardstock into tiny bits, watches as they’re flushed away.

Roger is not surprised to see her. He invites her in to watch the game, hands her a cold beer. She takes care that he’s watching when she puts her mouth on the glass bottle. They can drink beer too. He downs his in large gulps, watches her sip. She slow smiles.

His place looks like a house absent a woman. White walls, cheap fixtures, beige carpet. He has a massive fucking fish tank. She stands in front of it and sips her beer, feels him watching as she observes the bright creatures flickering through the water.

“There’s no smell,” she says, genuine in her surprise.

“Because they’re undead.”

This pleases her.

There’s no time for a slow build; she’s in Roger’s lap before halftime. The only strange part is how she likes it. She likes it very much. She thought it might call up phantoms of the other one, but that was sharp edges, stinging cuts. She likes Roger’s hard roundness and round hardness, cold as stone. She approves of his inane prop glasses and his pointed teeth. She’s turned on right here on his ugly leather sectional by the light of his big tv. She observes that she’s never been turned on, before. Roger slips her panties onto the floor and smooths her neck, looking for a good vein.

“Yes,” he says, “it is a yes, to this?” He’s totally calm, but they can’t exist without consent. Not for long, anyway. It’s in the metaphysics of the thing, not to mention the societal agreement that we won’t hunt the creatures down. To breech consent is to invite what’s trawling Isabelle’s blood.

Brooke is straightforward. “I want to. But I need something.” Roger remains unsurprised.

In her new life, with Roger, there is no future. No school applications. No dossiers to prepare. No time to come, wherein Isabelle would no longer need a mother’s watchful eye. Of course, they must keep moving, for their three-year-old is illegal, a threat, anyone granted license to shoot her through the heart. But only if they know what she is.

Isabelle will not grow, but she is beautiful. Beautiful like a diamond, clear and hard like the new brightness in her eyes. If they top her off beforehand, they can keep her out in public for six, even eight hours. Closely supervised, of course. Brooke gets a thrill at the danger.

Isabelle is lovely in her little white suit by the pool in Nice, charming in her blue fairytale gown at Cinderella’s Florida castle, breathtaking in fur as they winter in a Swiss chalet. Brooke takes no photos. They could be evidence against them, but Brooke doesn’t need them. Photos are supplication to the gods of change, to the mess, the melting, the never again. Photos are submission to death. Photos are for the future, but Brooke has bought, for Isabelle, an everlasting present; she’ll never be anything but perfect, anything but now.

They say vampirism is desire. Three-year-olds are desire. You can call it an abomination all you want. Brooke calls it a perfect fit.

Brooke is picturing this no-future, as she leads Roger through the back door of her home and up the stairs. She takes Roger’s hand and steers him to Isabelle’s bed, where the child is deep in sleep. They’ll have to wake her. She can’t turn if she doesn’t agree to drink.

This is it. Brooke attends to the contrast between her daughter’s dark hair and the crisp, white eyelet bedding. She approves of the effect of the moonlight as it filters in through the trees, dappling bed and daughter with more of dark and bright. She watches, as Isabelle breathes to a rhythm belonging only to sleep, as a little nightmare sending her eyelids aflutter.

Roger touches her, at the elbow. “It’s better if we don’t wait any longer.” Brooke nods. She watches as Roger bends to her baby’s neck, breaks the skin and drinks. Isabelle doesn’t stir. Brooke is captivated, as Roger uses one fang to open a clean line on his wrist. He nods, and Brooke wakes her daughter.

“Isabelle, mommy’s here. Wake up, Isabelle. Wake up.” The little girl opens sleep fogged eyes. Brooke murmurs calming words. This is a tense bit. If Isabelle gets frightened, screams, refuses, then Brooke will have to face the future. She continues her gentle talk, smoothing Isabelle’s hair. “You’re sick, baby. You’re so sick, but mommy has medicine for you. Be a good girl and drink the medicine.”

Isabelle looks at Roger, curious. “I had a bad dream,” she says.

“Yes,” says Brooke, “yes, I know. The medicine will make the bad dreams go away. Go ahead, now, drink.” Bright red drops mark the white bedding. Isabelle looks to the door to her room. John is standing there, holding their gun. Brooke’s first thought is that he’ll have left the cabinet wide open.

“Daddy, I’m thirsty.” John looks from Brooke to Roger, Roger to his daughter. “I’m thirsty, daddy.”

“It’s ok, Izzy my love, let me talk to mommy for one minute.” John points the gun at Roger’s heart.

“John, we have to …”

“Shut up, Brooke.”

Roger offers his wrist to Isabelle, never taking his eyes off John. She wrinkles her forehead, but then, drinks, eager, a hungry baby bird. Bright red rings her mouth.

Brooke tries to watch both men. She starts to move but freezes at a look from John. John starts to lower his gun. Yes, please, he sees this is the only way. He must see this is the only way. His eyes are wet. He raises the gun again, towards Roger. “I love you Izzy,” he says.

John swings the gun to the right and shoots his daughter through the heart.

He rushes to the bed, gathering the little body close. Roger is on John, pinning him, bleeding him. Brooke doesn’t look at any of that. She fixes her eyes on the red flowering on the sheets. God, that crimson is beautiful, set against that pure, bright white.

About the Author

B.F. Jones is a Midwestern writer who lives between the city and the plains. Her fiction is a confession, occasionally an exorcism, powered by Coca-Cola and the companionship of a deeply judgmental cat. Her words have appeared in Miracle Monocle, and you can find her on socials @bethfelkerjones.