Vampire

Liza looked at the old man sitting in her old rocking chair by the bed. The skin of his face and arms was covered, not with tiny wrinkles as she had first thought, but with a myriad of tiny scars from ruptures constantly forming over previously regenerated ruptures, to finally compose a chaotic pattern in the skin with scars crossing other scars. If he was telling the truth, the pain must have been excruciating; his torturers depraved perverts. In fact, he didn’t have any wrinkles at all. Apart from the scars, his skin was immaculate. If it wasn’t for his posture and manners, he could have passed for a young man. Apollonian. He didn’t have the Apollonian temper, so what about his lasciviousness? She could feel a slight blush and chuckled to herself at the thought. He was lean. Thin, in fact. Nothing to suggest strength or speed. Imprisoned. Burned. How long had he been locked up here in the USA? She sat down on the bed next to the unconscious fugitive.

“Ple... ahem... please continue. Do you have no recollection of the time before?”

“Not much. I can remember bits and fragments from different places and times. Nothing consistent.” He paused, “Why did you smile?”

“What? I just thought of something. Please continue.”

“I think perhaps I have existed always. Some faint fragments are of human beings on all four. Game. In my times of incarceration, I have often contemplated eternity. Consider this... look forward into the everlasting. It is difficult but it is moderately possible. Don’t you agree?”

“Yes, I suppose it is. It just tones off into oblivion.”

“Exactly. Now try to think backwards in time. Infinitely far back. You can’t imagine a time with no beginning, can you?”

“No, you are right. I can’t.”

“That has been on my mind as long as I remember. Where did I begin? Who gave birth to this abomination? Several religions have myths of fallen deities. Angels, I presume.”

“You reckon you’re an angel?”

There was a faintly mocking tone in her voice.

“No. I just say that when sitting alone in the dark, year after year, your mind starts wandering. Arguing with oneself is never conclusive. You quickly begin to agree when there are no counter-arguments. There rarely are with only one participant.” He laughed mildly at this, “One day a new recruit came to me in my cell. They must have forgotten to tell him about me. The others had been very careful not to get too close to me. They never opened my manacles. This young soldier probably just saw an old, soiled and grimy figure on the floor and thought me harmless. He hammered out the pins and released me. I remember being so surprised that I didn’t move for a long time. It was not until he bent over to grab my hair that I reacted. I drank him in one long guzzle. It was the first blood...”

“You drank his blood?!”

“Yes. That is what I do. Sometimes... like now, where I think me civilized... I feel a deep self-reproach. That I don’t belong in humanity. Then when I feed, I am on a high and forget it all.”

“Tell me, have you read Bram Stoker?”

“No. I haven’t read books since my blindness. Long before that, as a matter of fact. I have heard a few poems that stick. But not actual novels. I heard it mentioned once, though. In the hospital ward. Referring to me, I think.”

“There was a film last year or perhaps the year before in the movie theatre. A Hungarian actor played Dracula. I don’t recall his name. Bill Luigoso I think. I watched it with my... husband and I screamed my heart out. Now I am sitting here with a real vampire and I bring you cool water. Can you see the irony?”

“Ah, I think perhaps it was that film they talked about in the hospital then. Not the book. Anyway, I know the legends. I don’t fit very well into those stories. I am not contagious. My constitution does not transmit like a pestilence. Not like they portray it, at least.”

“How do you mean? Not through bites?”

“Eh, I have done... I did only one... turning. I may have done it earlier but if so I don’t remember. The one time I did it, is when I was caught in France.”

“And the one you... turned? What about him?”

“She... it was a woman. She died. The soldiers killed her. They tortured her in front of me and killed her.”

“In the sun?”

“Yes. In the sun. I have never really gotten over it. Despite me having my revenge.”

“So not only did you sit blinded a lifetime in a cell. You did it with the memory of your love. Scorched to death by your captors. That is so sad.”

“Yes, I loved her. Dearly.”

“That is what you mean when you say a bite is not enough, isn’t it?”

“Yes. It takes love. Love and endless desire. A will to sustain eternity. Embrace it.”

“It sounds very angelic, actually.” She sighed and then continued, “Okay, carry on. You got out?”

“Yes. I took his clothes. I had been deprived of clothing since my capture. His uniform directly on my skin was a strange and unfamiliar sensation. My hair had regularly been singed off but had grown quite long nonetheless. I tied it up to get my ears free and left the cell. Navigating the prison by sound alone was difficult but I could hear the bustle from the streets and let myself be guided by that. I didn’t meet many guards on my way out but those I did I bled and drank. At first, I wanted to make it hurt as much as I could but pain didn’t relieve my lust for vengeance. It just made the blood turn bitter. Instead, I chose to savour the blood and gain strength. Then, when I got to the gates, I waited. Tried to get my bearings and sound the waters, so to speak. It was a dangerous balance to be made. It was only a matter of time before someone would sound call alarm. But after a while, I felt that I could place objects in the square or crossing outside the prison. Then I ran towards what I assumed was a carriage. The sun burned my skin as I ran. But I managed to get to the wagon and drag myself underneath it. I fell a couple of times and feared for my discovery. But in the end, I managed to get a grip onto something in the undercarriage and heave myself up under it.”

“And they didn’t see you?”

“Not at first. It wasn’t until later that someone must have spotted me and yelled at the driver. But luckily it was in the narrow streets of a small village, so I could escape without them catching me.”

The old man turned to her face and stared directly into her eyes. The sensation was disturbing. The blind eyes burning into hers.

“Hark; relentless swells on faraway shores

Bells so nigh we tremble too.

Foaming ghosts that shed their lies:

“Thine lives must end so soon”.

Thus foretold we stand opposed

Our might but that of a moth.

Love shall die as you and I

No oil shall sooth the prophets’ will.

Nor will it stop, the stories told;

Deaf or not we hear them still.”

“I remember that verse still; from when I left her ghost behind in that prison. In that cursed country.”

“It’s a bit ominous, isn’t it?”

“Yes, perhaps it is. It’s a lie, really. Death becomes a dream when it is out of reach. Like paradise to you.” His shoulders fell slightly forward, “Now it is your turn.”

“I am just a florist. I have nothing to tell.”

“Everybody does. It doesn’t have to be dramatic.”

“Okay. I was born in Pennsylvania. I moved here when I got married. Robert, my husband, was a gardener and started this shop. At first, it was landscaping but business was failing and I got the idea to start the flower shop. It thrived and my husband withered. He turned to drink and then gambling... then he stayed out all night more and more often. As I told you, I would have cheating husbands come in on weekends to buy flowers - absolution - for their wives. When one day he came home with a golden watch for me, I knew. He was buying remission.” Her voice had become harder now, “I threw him out.”

“So, you didn’t kill him?”

“No. His mistress did. She pushed him off a balcony in a dance hall. People said they had had a quarrel and she had pushed him. Drunk as he was, he had fallen over the railing and broke his neck in the fall. At least, I assume it was his mistress. I never knew her.”

“So, the watch isn’t his. It is yours.”

“Yes.”

“And the razor?”

“That was my wedding gift to him. I keep it as a reminder. For so long, all I wanted to do was slash his throat with it. I have it to hold on to that memory. You know what they say - a love lost is easily confused for hate.”

“No, I had never heard that. It is still not a good murder weapon, though.” He mused.

“Perhaps you are right. But is a good reminder.”

“I can understand that.”

The young woman stood up and cleared her throat.

“I think I will tie him down. Just in case he wakes up.”

She pointed at the bed before realizing that no one could see her. Heavy footed she left the bedroom. Allesandro felt his mind wander with her footsteps. Followed them around the storey on blinded wings as she moved.