The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

Stumbling through the jungle, fleeing an invisible enemy, I sought refuge in the closing darkness. Bleeding from innumerable small cuts, a head wound and a bullet wound through my left bicep, I knew my strength was almost at its last. I had run out of water the day before. I had been traveling almost due west for two days and a night, and the second night was just beginning. I was exhausted, but I pushed on. I knew that if I slept it would be my last. I would either die from exposure and shock, or I would be found by those hunting me and slaughtered outright. Either way, I couldn’t stop.



It’s 1904. I’m a professional soldier. I was part of a small mercenary army assigned to a company of French Foreign Legion. We were fighting the Vietnamese to protect French plantations in the Khmer province in Southeast Asia. And the French were losing ground. We had led a successful campaign against the Vietnamese-raised, Chinese-backed militia, pushing them back past the Tonle Thom (“great river”), but it was a ruse. We were lead into an ambush.



To make a long story short, I was on my own. I was apparently the only survivor to head west, and I was being pursued by at least a dozen of the opposing force. Damn, they hold a grudge. They know how to move through the jungle, and can evidently track better than I can evade. Somehow, I had managed to elude them for two full days, but they had found my trail, and I couldn’t shake them. I had lost my rifle and sidearm in the ambush, and I had left my survival knife in one of the enemy that had strayed from the pack. I was now unarmed, and maybe twenty minutes ahead of my pursuers. And night was falling.



Pushing forward as quickly and as quietly as I could manage, I broke through the trees and underbrush and plowed headlong into a stone outcropping. I fell heavily onto my butt and looked up into a gigantic, beatific face. It was an enormous stone Buddha. I had stumbled upon an ancient, abandoned structure, like the legendary Angkor Wat or Angkor Thom. I climbed to my feet and moved around the temple to the right. I found a doorway on the north side and entered the structure.



Under a darkening sky I took stock of my situation. I was in a courtyard, about eighty feet across. There was no roof over the courtyard, just treetops and open sky. The walls were about eighteen feet high and six feet thick, heavily carved in bas relief, with occasional alcoves carved into the stone, but no real rooms. There was only the doorway I entered through. Maybe I could conceal myself in the shadows of a alcove. I looked down at the moss and lichen-covered stone floor. I had no hope of hiding here; my footprints were as plain as day. I was lost. All I could hope for was what any professional soldier knew was his lot: a swift death.



I decided to make the best of it and sat down facing the doorway I came through, with my back to the cool, moist stone. I didn’t care if they found me now or not; there was no way I was ever going to stand up again. Giving up, my eyelids immediately drooped and I fell into a deep sleep.



Something was wrong. I opened my eyes. I shouldn’t be alive. Something changed, subtly, and woke me up. Immediately everything became surreal. I was still in the courtyard, but everything appeared as if lit by a diffuse, blue light. I could no longer hear the insects and birds of the jungle. I could only hear the chittering language of the monkeys that had taken up residence in the temple. They were watching me from the top of the walls and from the alcoves. Then I saw something move through the doorway.



continued...

It came gliding through the doorway, silent as a breath. I never confused it with the farmers-turned-soldiers that were trailing me. She was tall and elegant, with flowing black hair and nut-brown skin, wearing a billowy, almost gauzy robe that seemed to float around her, though the air was still. Her eyes were both red and black at the same time, and locked onto mine. Immediately upon her appearance, the monkeys became silent, as if holding their collective breath. By the roll of her hips she appeared to take only three steps, but in doing so glided all the way across the courtyard to stand before me. Earlier I had accepted that when I closed my eyes I was going to die, hopefully a clean death from a bullet or a knife thrust. But now I was scared. This was supernatural. She bent towards me and I could see in her eyes animal intent, hunger, and lust. I knew I was going to be devoured.



She reached out and caressed my temple. Her touch was chill, but it inflamed my blood. Suddenly I wasn’t fatigued anymore. She bent forward and kissed my lips, never breaking her gaze with my eyes. I was aroused; I tried to fight the urge, but my body responded with a mind of its own. I was only mildly surprised to discover that I was suddenly naked. I don’t remember that happening, but didn’t stop to ponder it. I was otherwise engaged. She lowered herself onto me and took complete control.



We were locked together seemingly for an eternity; everything that had happened in my 35-year life prior to this was eclipsed by our lovemaking. I didn’t exist anymore, except for this passionate embrace. She took from me and gave back to me at the same time; my life flowing into her and life flowing back into me. Finally she lifted my left hand to her mouth, closed her eyes, and bit into the flesh between my thumb and forefinger. I exploded.



When I awoke I was alone, except for the audience of monkeys, still silent, still watching. The sun was up over the wall, shining down on me. It had to be nearly noon. The sun hurt my eyes, and felt hot on my skin. I moved into shadow. My clothes were loosely draped over me. I wasn’t tired anymore. Surprisingly my head and my arm didn’t hurt anymore. More surprisingly I was alive. Then the dream came back to me. In detail. I mean, it had to be a dream, right? Then I remembered the end of the dream. I looked down at my left hand. There were puncture marks in the web between my thumb and forefinger, and it was swollen with infection. I could barely move the fingers. Then I noticed the cuts and abrasions I had accumulated running through the jungle had healed overnight to pale pink lines. I looked at my left bicep. There were pink scars on either side of my arm where the bullet had entered and exited. I wasn’t tired, I wasn’t sore. I was hungry, though. No longer on-the-verge-of-death starvation, but tear-raw-meat-off-the-bone ravenous.



Then monkeys were chittering again, moving back and forth nervously. I considered how one of them would taste, then thought it best if I left.



I was sure I was still being hunted, and couldn’t figure out why they hadn’t found me in the night. Maybe they knew I couldn’t get out without being noticed so they decided to set up camp outside and catch some sleep before killing me. Very civilized of them. Very considerate.



I eased my way to the entrance and looked out. No one to be seen. I looked right and left; still alone. I moved around the temple to the right, back the way I had come from. And came face to face with bloodsplashed trees. There were shreds of clothing, shoes, a helmet, equipment belts and rifles. No identifiable flesh anywhere. The bottom six feet of about a dozen trees and the ground were painted red. The ground was crawling with insects. At the edge of the blood I found a knife still in its sheath. I took it and ran south.



My left hand healed before I reached the south edge of the jungle. I found that I could run all day or all night without fatigue. I also discovered that bright sunlight hurt my eyes, and direct sunlight caused painful sunburn quickly, although it was always gone again by morning. So I began traveling by night, and sleeping by day, although I don’t need as much sleep as I used to.



Once I was back in civilization I discovered other changes. I don’t get sick anymore; not colds, flu, anything. My aging has slowed. I still age, but it appears to be one year for every ten. I don’t crave blood, but when I stop to eat or drink I consume more than any four men can hold. And my strength and endurance have become a thing out of legend. (Who knows? Maybe Hercules was a vampire.) I have had to pick up and move every time I’ve stayed in one place too long and people notice that I’m not aging appropriately. I’ve found it helps not getting too close to anyone for too long.

I came home to a darkened house. The front door was still locked, but when I unlocked it and pushed the door open, I knew immediately that something was wrong. No wife to welcome me. I wasn’t running that late; she wouldn’t have been in bed yet. No dogs came running up to me. A stiff breeze blew against me, as though all of the windows on the other side of the house were open.



I entered the dark house quietly. I left the door open and crept through the house, trying to detect what was amiss. The power wasn’t out; I could see the numbers from the digital clock in the kitchen. I took a right into the formal living room and saw the drapes billowing into the room, the shattered window frame, the glass on the floor. Something or someone had crashed through long before I came home. Then I smelled the blood. I turned and felt under the lampshade for the switch. Soft yellow light bathed the room. I saw my love lying on the floor in front of the fireplace; her blouse splashed with blood; her throat torn out. There was a very large, still spreading pool of blood around her.



Then I noticed him. He was sitting in the straight-backed wooden chair next to the fireplace. There was blood on his face, neck and shirt. He was sitting with his knees crossed and his fingers steepled in front of his face. The pool of blood on the floor had reached his right shoe.



Without preamble he began, “I saw her through the window and knew I had to make her mine. It was very quick. She hardly felt a thing. I caught her by surprise, before she could struggle. I wanted to turn her; to make her one of the chosen, like me. But I couldn’t stop myself and drank too much. I’m afraid she’s gone.



“I only stayed around waiting for you to arrive so that I could apologize to you. I cannot return your wife to you, but I can make it up to you by making you a vampire, too.”



I stared at him in disbelief. His voice was calm. He had just killed my wife, and to make amends he was offering to make me a vampire, as casually as if we were discussing replacing a lost pair of hedge clippers.



“I know this is all rather a sudden shock to you, finding out that you have lost your wife, but I am offering you eternal life in exchange. I know you are overcome with grief now, but it will all become a distant memory when you become one with the night.”



I looked back at the near-black pool on the floor. So much blood! He couldn’t have drank more than a mouthful, I thought. I looked at him again. This is not a vampire; this is a madman.



My eyes burned. Sudden emotion rushed into my throat, preventing any speech. “I understand your inability to speak right now,” he said. “But I will take your silence as agreement.” I looked at his eyes. His eyes did not burn as he spoke. They were veiled behind the mists of detachment.



He started to rise. The instant he was upright I threw myself at him and sunk my knee deep into his solar plexus, knocking all the air out of his lungs. Before he could double over I had grabbed him by the throat and slammed him against the wall, knocking the chair aside. My fingers were tightening on his throat, cutting off any chance of breath or sound. The back of his head was pressed against the wall; his feet were barely grazing the floor.



He tried punching me, but he had no air in his lunges and his strength was waning fast. He clawed at my arms, his broken and dirty fingernails gouging furrows in my flesh and drawing blood for the second time this night.



I watched him as his eyes widened and he slowly gained comprehension. He was going to die. He tried to speak, but his lungs held no air and my hand was pressed up under his chin, preventing his jaw from working. His heels hammered against the wall as he twisted and struggled.



He finally sagged, limp and unconscious. I held him in place for another minute before letting him fall. I knelt on his back and cleanly snapped his neck.



I stood and surveyed what he had done. The woman I loved lay dead in her own blood, needlessly slaughtered by a lunatic suffering under the delusion that he was a supernatural creature of the night. In doing so he had single-handedly ruined the life I had constructed. The web of deceit I had so intricately woven fooled most people, but it would not stand up to the scrutiny the police would focus on my past during the inevitable investigation.



I emptied my pockets of everything and fled into the night, leaving this life behind.

COMMENTS

-

---

MysticMoon
14:00 May 30 2008

wonderful :)

---

DistantDesire
19:39 Feb 27 2011

Well written. I look forward to reading more.

---

POST COMMENT