Page 32 of Loved to Death

“I…” Shen’s mind raced.WhydidThomas turn me into an undead monster? “I have no idea. All he said was ‘I’m sorry’ and then he bit me and made me drink his blood.”

“What were you doing before I arrived?” she asked suspiciously.

Practiced at lying from years of meeting up with other men, the half-lie slipped out of Shen’s mouth without forethought. “Stealing money to buy passage on a ship.”

“A ship?”

He nodded. “We both wanted to escape from…our lives.”

She scoffed. “He wouldn’t buy passage on a ship. He can’t survive a sea voyage.”

“He seemed to think he could.”

Polly turned her head toward the bay and closed her eyes. Her eyebrows creased as she muttered, “Impulsive simpleton!” She started pulling things from out of the grave while talking to herself. “Running away only to catch fire on a ship.” Once she had saddlebags and a blanket in her hands, she focused on Shen, took a deep breath, and said calmly, “Come. We need to get you fed and see what information we can gather on Thomas.”

“Fed?” Shen backed away and shook his head.

Polly took a step forward and hissed, “You belong to me now. I turned Thomas and Thomas turned you. That makes you my responsibility. If you want to stay here and wait for the sun to burn you alive, I’ll make sure you can’t run or bury yourself before I leave. But if you want to live, then you come with me and do as I say. Your choice, but this is the only time I’m giving you a choice. Do you want to live or die?”

If his options were being burned alive or becoming a white woman’s slave, he’d choose to live and hope to escape. “I want to live,” Shen whispered. His entire body trembled as the implications of his own words sank in and his soul wept.

“Good.”

He followed her out of the clearing and eventually into the city.

Shen had several horrifying experiences over the course of the evening. First was a trip to an alleyway where Polly shoved a drunk old man under Shen’s nose. The lust-fueled loss of control as he gulped down the human’s blood was overwhelming. Second was the unexpected sexual encounter between him and Polly that happened while the blood was still warm on his tongue. She’d undone his pants, grasped his stiff member, and guided him into her soft folds before he even understood what was happening. Then she bit her own wrist, shoved the wound in his mouth and bit his neck to drink. He’d always worried about being able to perform for whatever future wife his father arranged for him because he wasn’t aroused by looking at the female form, but being inside Polly while sharing blood brought him to an amazing climax. Once he came down from his high and started thinking rationally again, the entire set of events turned his stomach. Each act seemed more repugnant than the next, creating one big disgusting memory.

While he was still reeling from those horrors, Polly ordered him to carry the saddlebags, call her “Miss Polly,” and walk behind her to look like a proper servant for the world at large. After that order, he’d decided never to tell her she’d been calling him by his family name instead of his given name the way he corrected most English speakers.

Then there was an unfruitful visit to the wharf where Polly spent ten minutes standing on the docks with her hands on her hips and glaring out at the ocean as if it had personally offended her. And the final act of the night was being buried alive next to his captor. Shen fell asleep to the memory of Thomas spouting lies about the happy life they could have together.

***

Over the next week, Thomas settled into life on the ship. After hiding in the shadows for five long years, the shock of being honest in front of strangers took some getting used to. The liberty to spend his time as he pleased instead of following Polly’s every whim made him jumpy at first. Like a prisoner being released after years of incarceration, Thomas kept looking over his shoulder expecting retribution. But it didn’t take long for him to shake off that paranoia. The more decisions he made for himself, the more familiar it became, and by the third evening, it was like slipping on a favorite pair of well-worn boots.

Some of the crew members actively avoided him, while others seemed to seek him out every evening for companionship. Captain Martinez had made it clear to everyone that Thomas was to be treated as any other paid passenger, except when delivering goods or engaging in battle when he’d be treated as part of the crew. Thomas found the leisure of watching others work akin to being in his father’s mill back in his teen years. Even the men who glared at him as he passed treated him with a modicum of respect because of his status.

He spent most of his time reading books from Mr. Johansen’s surprisingly large collection and discussing the stories with the first mate, but he also played cards with the crew members that didn’t avoid him, and in the process found he genuinely enjoyed their company.

Constantly being aware of Shen’s feelings weighed on Thomas. The other man seemed to fluctuate between sorrow, anger, horror, and guilt with nary a happy moment to be had. He could sense Shen’s growing hunger matching his own as they were both currently subsisting on animal blood. The growing hunger mixed with the negative emotions made Thomas certain that Shen was with Polly. He was begrudgingly glad the two were together, because it meant Shen would learn how to survive, even if he was miserable in the process. It also meant Thomas could track Polly almost as well as she could track him, so there would be no surprise attacks unless they were within a day’s travel of each other when the evening started.

On the sixth evening on board when Thomas woke from his slumber, he noticed the oldest crew member, Robert, sitting just outside his unlocked cell door. Robert was one of the men that would seek out his company, and one of the few men on board that had been born and raised in America. Thomas had grown to appreciate the older man’s brisk manner.

“Robert?” Thomas asked as he sat up.

The older man’s eyes locked on his. “Manzanillo is in sight. Captain’s been waiting on you.”

Apprehension curled in his stomach as he tossed off the covers and pulled on his boots. “You could have woken me up.”

“Why?” Robert said before pushing himself to his feet. “You couldn’t go on deck before the sun went down.”

Once Thomas had his boots and jacket on, he followed Robert up the stairs.

When Captain Martinez caught sight of him, he strode to Thomas with a grin and slapped him on the back. “Time to show us what you’re made of.” He pointed toward the bow of the ship. “The lights over there are coming from Manzanillo.”

Thomas looked across the sea. Several clusters of lights along the shore lit up the bay. The captain had shown him a map of the area a couple of times over the past week. According to the captain, the bay itself looked like an ample woman’s breasts with a rocky point about a mile long separating the two sides of the bay. Thomas thought it looked more like two earlobes lying next to each other. The main town was in the center of the two lobes located at the base of the rocky point, and the shipping port was halfway down the point on the south side. Their destination was a small cove on the northern tip of the point, half a mile from the port, and over a mile from the military base near town.

The captain pointed toward the northern tip. “That’s our destination. The waters are too shallow for the steamships to maneuver safely, so the cove rarely gets used. Our contact is supposed to signal us when it’s safe to slip into the cove and unload. If everything goes as planned, we’ll be in and out before the authorities notice us. If things don’t go to plan, you’ll hold off the authorities until we’re able to unload.”

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