Nightmare At 20,000 Feet Read Online Free PDF Page B

around his flesh. He hated sunlight.
    And his ideas were a little out of place for the people who lived on the block.
    Jules wanted to be a vampire.
    People declared it common knowledge that he was born on a night when winds uprooted trees. They said he was born with three teeth. They said he'd used them to fasten himself on his mother's breast drawing blood with the milk.
    They said he used to cackle and bark in his crib after dark. They said he walked at two months and sat staring at the moon whenever it shone.
    Those were things that people said.
    His parents were always worried about him. An only child, they noticed his flaws quickly.
    They thought he was blind until the doctor told them it was just a vacuous stare. He told them that Jules, with his large head, might be a genius or an idiot. It turned out he was an idiot.
    He never spoke a word until he was five. Then, one night coming up to supper, he sat down at the table and said "Death."
    His parents were torn between delight and disgust. They finally settled for a place in between the two feelings. They decided that Jules couldn't have realized what the word meant.
    But Jules did.
    From that night on, he built up such a large vocabulary that everyone who knew him was astonished. He not only acquired every word spoken to him, words from signs, magazines, books; he made up his own words.
    Like- nightouch. Or- killove. They were really several words that melted into each other. They said things Jules felt but couldn't explain with other words.
    He used to sit on the porch while the other children played hopscotch, stickball and other games. He sat there and stared at the sidewalk and made up words.
    Until he was twelve Jules kept pretty much out of trouble.
    Of course there was the time they found him undressing Olive Jones in an alley. And another time he was discovered dissecting a kitten on his bed.
    But there were many years in between. Those scandals were forgotten.
    In general he went through childhood merely disgusting people.
    He went to school but never studied. He spent about two or three terms in each grade. The teachers all knew him by his first name. In some subjects like reading and writing he was almost brilliant.
    In others he was hopeless.
    One Saturday when he was twelve, Jules went to the movies. He saw Dracula.

    When the show was over he walked, a throbbing nerve mass, through the little girl and boy ranks.
    He went home and locked himself in the bathroom for two hours.
    His parents pounded on the door and threatened but he wouldn't come out.
    Finally he unlocked the door and sat down at the supper table. He had a bandage on his thumb and a satisfied look on his face.
    The morning after he went to the library. It was Sunday. He sat on the steps all day waiting for it to open. Finally he went home.
    The next morning he came back instead of going to school.
    He found Dracula on the shelves. He couldn't borrow it because he wasn't a member and to be a member he had to bring in one of his parents.
    So he stuck the book down his pants and left the library and never brought it back.
    He went to the park and sat down and read the book through. It was late evening before he finished.
    He started at the beginning again, reading as he ran from street light to street light, all the way home.
    He didn't hear a word of the scolding he got for missing lunch and supper. He ate, went in his room and read the book to the finish. They asked him where he got the book. He said he found it.
    As the days passed Jules read the story over and over. He never went to school.
    Late at night, when he had fallen into an exhausted slumber, his mother used to take the book into the living room and show it to her husband.
    One night they noticed that Jules had underlined certain sentences with dark shaky pencil lines.

    Like: "The lips were crimson with fresh blood and the stream had trickled over her chin and stained the purity of her lawn death robe."

    Or: "When the blood began