Untitled (Gothic Fiction)

A man walks down a hallway. Bags sag under his eyes, memories that have latched onto him and now weigh him down. He is not alone; a security guard is leading in front of him. He committed a crime. Murdered a woman.
Undeniable evidence; her body drowning in blood, his stake impaled inside her covered in his fingerprints. He is obviously guilty. Or is he?

**********

The night is lit dimly by the one working street light. After straining to read my work papers in the poor lighting for at least fifteen minutes, I fling them across onto the passenger seat. My reluctance to return to my flat has kept me here for long enough, I should go inside. But the thought of the chilled stairwell, the grungy furniture, and the fact that I will have to face my roommate is enough to delay me for a few more minutes. I’m not ready to have yet another argument with her, like that we had this morning before I left for work.
The block of flats stretches high above me, and I scan the different windows of what many people call ‘home’. Most of them are shielded in some way, by thick curtains, crooked blinds, or in one case, a white bed sheet. Out of the remaining windows that are uncovered, the odd few are lit inside but most are in darkness.
I look away and that’s when I see her. A beautiful woman approaches me. She is tall and very slim, and her body is engulfed by a long black coat that just reaches the top of her high heeled boots. Dark hair tumbles down her back, gently swinging from side to side as she walks towards my parked car. She passes under the street light and my eyes crawl across her face, drinking in her pale complexion, and honing in on her full lips, which are painted a deep burgundy. I know that I should stop staring at her, but I can’t draw my vision away from her incredible beauty.
She reaches me. A long fingernail taps on my window, she bends down to peer through.
I wind it down. The bitter breeze immediately chills my skin.
“Can I help you?” I mentally kick myself for the shakiness in my voice. I don’t believe I have ever spoken to someone this attractive before.
Her lips curl into a small smile before she replies.
“Yes. Yes you can.” There is something in her tone that seems to reach out and slither its way down my spine.
I laugh nervously, and glance down for a second with embarrassment.
I feel a sharp sting in my neck and the world melts away.

I sit bolt upright when my consciousness returns, accompanied by my last waking memory.
“Where am I?” I mutter, eyeing the unfamiliar surroundings.
The first thing I catch sight of is an antique-looking wooden chair on the far side of the large room. Its simple nature stands out from the other beautiful furniture pieces that surround the bed I am lying in. Exquisite curtains, so long that they brush the floor, are draping from an impressive window to my left. They keep the room gloomy, but a slim gap where they should meet in the centre lets a slither of light through.
“You’re in my home.”
The same, chilling voice from what I assume was the night before, though where it is coming from, I cannot tell.
“Your home?” I ask hesitantly, still unsure of how I arrived here. “What do you want from me?”
There’s a pause before I get a response. “The same as I want from all of you; to love you, use you, and dispose of you.”
I have to remind myself to focus on the words rather than the sound of her voice, which is strangely compelling, like that of a hypnotist. Once her words have registered, I realise I don’t know how to reply to them. Dispose of me? I desperately try to recall any detail of how I got here, shifting through memories but only coming up empty.
Her voice interrupts my thoughts.
“Eat this.” She drifts out of the darkness that falls over the back corner of the room, her right arm extended. In her hand is a bowl steaming with a stew of some sort. She appears to be wearing the same black boots that I remember, but without her coat I can now see the delicate dress that hugs her waist before spilling out around her. Her hair is swept up, its dark colour only highlighting her porcelain skin.
She slides the bowl onto the dusty chest beside the bed with no further explanation. As she goes to leave, she pauses and looks at me. A few long seconds drag on; her gaze is so intense.
And then with a swift flick of her hair, she retreats from the room, leaving me alone.

When I awake, she is gone. I can feel her absence. Or rather, I cannot feel her presence. In the time that I have been here, which must be at least a few weeks now, I have become disturbingly used to it. Whenever she is nearby, a soft ache begins in my head; a pleasant ache, similar to when you press gently onto a fading bruise and even though you know you shouldn’t like the pain, you do. The farther from me she gets, the fainter the ache becomes, until I no longer feel it at all. Like now.
I squeeze my eyes shut in an attempt to focus on something other than the detached feeling in my head, the nothingness that reminds me that I am alone, that she is not close by. I try to concentrate on the accumulation of smells that linger on the lavish fabrics decorating the furnishings, but my nose does not register them. All I can register is the image of her face that is projected onto the back of my eyelids. Her cruel smile haunts my dreams and haunts my reality. I desperately want to be free from it, from this place, but I can’t. I need her. Like an addict needs their drug.
I don’t know how long ago she left, whether it was last night after I had fallen asleep or this morning before I woke up, but I realise that she needs to come back quickly. To satisfy both her needs and mine.
I stumble out of the bedroom on shaky footing, my limbs feeling as if they are weakening by the minute. Once I am out onto the long landing, I catch sight of myself in the mirror that occupies the wall opposite me. My dark hair is curling across my forehead, longer than it’s been for ages, and I desperately need a shave. But what stands out over my rugged appearance is the expression behind it. It’s different than any I’ve ever seen on myself before, and I don’t like it.
Grasping onto the doorframe in an attempt to keep myself upright, I try to slow my breathing. It’s difficult when I don’t know where she is or when she is going to return, but I eventually manage to calm myself down.
I hate that I am so dependent on her, that without her I fall apart, and more than anything, I hate how she uses that to control me. She is the spider, and she has captured the fly in her intricate web. The fly longs to be free, but has been drained of so much of itself that it becomes easier to just give into the spider rather than try to escape.
It’s early; the rose rays of the rising sun should be starting to illuminate the landing through the grand window. But I can see through the glass that a mist is weaving through the air, concealing the surroundings and muffling the light, keeping me in dullness.
My knees buckle, causing my legs to finally give way, and I crumple onto the floor.

The gentle buzzing in my head is returning and, relieved at the familiarity, I let my body relax into the wall behind me. This soft wall. A soft wall that is caressing my hair.
My mind jerks into reality the moment that a pair of sharp teeth pierce my neck and sink into my skin. I make a feeble attempt to tear myself away from her, knowing that I should, but the warmth that is surging through me feels too good. Also, her arms are locked firmly around my torso, leaving me at her mercy. I feel like we are two beings in a sculpture, forced into a stone cold embrace.
I flop forwards when she eventually releases me, unable to support myself fully. There’s a haziness coating the room, transforming furniture and objects into smears of colour. I know all too well that the initial faintness from losing blood wears off rapidly, that soon the absorption of her strength will kick in. But with that strength comes the remembrance that I belong to her, that my body is addicted to her. Trying to run from her is not an option; I will die in the process, after a significant passage of time without her feeding from me I will become too weak to continue.
She crouches down in front of me so close that our faces nearly touch. I can faintly smell the metallic edge of blood on her breath; my blood. The dark eyes staring into mine are curious, searching for something. For a moment the usual coldness that they possess is gone, as if a curtain has been let down, revealing a look that is almost kind. My vision is still swimming slightly, and when she starts to whisper my name over and over, I am sure I must be dreaming. But the wisps of breath that tickle my face suggest otherwise.
As soon as my body begins to feel less heavy and my mind becomes more alert, I sit up.
“I hate this, you know.” The remark escapes from my lips before I can bite it back.
Abruptly, she straightens up, the coldness suddenly frozen over her eyes as if it never left. Now standing, she turns her head to look down at me. The silk dress that clings to her figure sways around her ankles as she does so. Her black eyes narrow slightly as if she is pondering my sudden outburst.
I continue, unable to stop now. “You may think that because my body needs you, that I need you too. But I hate living this way, and one day I will escape.”
She throws her head back and lets out a high pitched laugh, then straightens up again and raises one eyebrow.
“Impossible,” she whispers, while an unsettling smile settles upon her face. “In order to do that, you’d have to kill me.”

You’d have to kill me. After she left me that day, whenever I am alone those words, her words, rattle around my skull constantly. I shuffle around the scraps of knowledge I have on her kind, and how to kill them. Burning, beheading, drowning in holy water, exposing to the sunlight, or a stake through the heart.
Any hope that I have gathered sinks again when I realise that it is likely that none of those are accessible to me here.
I flit my gaze around my room to assess whether it contains anything that could resemble one of these weapons. I’m just wondering the odds of her accidently falling into a font of holy water when my eyes lock onto the wooden chair that stands alone on the far side.
I scramble up from the bed and make my way over to it, and discover that the years of worn down wood have made the joints fragile. After turning it upside down, I work each leg off and eventually they tear away without much resistance.
I shove the stakes under the bed, ready for the opportunity to use one to arise.

My fingers turn pale as my grip on the stake tightens. The moment is finally here. With the realisation that I may have a way out I become a pan on the stove with the heat set too high; my rage is bubbling uncontrollably inside me, threatening to spill over the edge at any moment. As if in a dream, everything becomes blurry, everything except her. As my eyes settle on her, she turns sharp, in focus.
I charge at her, swinging my right arm above my head, ready to strike.
Something in her eyes seems to jump, like a spark leaping from a flame. Her dark lips curl slightly. Why is she smiling?
Just as I plunge my arm downwards, aimed at her heart, it is enclosed by a slender hand. Her fingers, so delicate looking, wrap around my wrist and squeeze. Pain floods me. My hand turns a milky white as the blood drains from it, minus five red crescents where her nails puncture my skin.
The rise and fall of my chest is violent as I gasp for air, but I can’t concentrate on my oxygen intake. I can feel something spreading through my body. Something dangerous.
Weakness.
It feels like a thick grey liquid coursing through me, consuming me, devouring me.
She hasn’t fed from me in a while. I need the strength she will give me; without it I fear I will wither away. My organs will disintegrate, my blood will dry up, and my skin will crumble into sand, until I am just a pile on the ground. The stake clatters to the floor as my grip slackens.
I feel her cool breath on the skin of my neck as she laughs gently and then plunges her teeth into it. I let my body go limp in her clutch, before reaching into my back pocket and removing a second stake, which I then drive through her back.
She stumbles away from me, her brows furrowed in confusion.
“Why”, she whimpers, “would you do this?”
I stare at her, my chest pounding heavily.
She frantically tries to reach behind her to pull the stake out, but cannot quite grasp onto it. The panic on her face when her gaze flits upwards is overwhelming; I have never her seen her with such a loss of control of herself.
“I thought-” Her voice is shaking now, her breathing becoming deeper. “I thought you would-”
“What?” I demand. “You thought I would what?”
A sob jerks her body.
I cannot move. Her mouth drops slightly open and her eyes fall shut momentarily as she sighs.
“I wanted it to be different this time,” she whispers.
Her arm reaches out to grasp onto me once more but I duck down, evading her outstretched hand, and grab the first stake off the floor. I don’t hesitate before stabbing it into her heart.
Her stomach contracts, and there is a long moment when her black eyes connect with mine. But her legs abruptly give way, sending her slender body crashing to the stone flooring.
I run.

“Guilty!”
The bang of the judge’s gavel pierces the silence that has descended over the courtroom, everyone eager to hear the verdict. But no one more eager than me. Hearing that word is not unlike being stabbed through the heart, knowing that even after the initial blow a slow stretch of unbearable pain still awaits you as you bleed to your inevitable death.
All eyes in the room turn to me, anticipating my response. But I do not offer one. I simply focus on the grand doors at the end of the aisle, staring blankly at them until they no longer look like doors at all. My vision becomes blurred and my mind numb. And they stay that way for the time it takes for the jury to file out, for my lawyer to pack away his folders, defeated, and for me to be led two floors down and returned to a single cell. It is only once I am alone that I sink to the floor and press my face into my sweaty palms.
I’m not guilty. I’m not guilty. I’m not guilty. I didn’t do it.
Except I am. And I did.
I feel like the word ‘murderer’ is branded on my forehead, screaming out that I have killed, that the blood of another has stained my hands. I can only imagine the life that is ahead of me now; the years upon years in prison, and if I ever get out, the shadow that will follow me. The shadow that will continue pursuing me until it devours every possible piece of light, leaving me alone in darkness.
It feels like two invisible weights sit upon my eyelids, easing them shut. I don’t have the energy or the will to fight to keep them open. Tiredness tugs gently at my brain, whispering sweet nothings about how good it will feel to just let go. Forget it all for a few hours. My dreams can’t be much worse than reality right now.
Except they can. I could dream of her.
So I shake my head roughly in an attempt to wake myself up. I need a distraction. I try counting the yellowing bricks that make up the walls around me, but the numbers seem to tumble out of my mind as soon as they have tumbled out of my mouth, until I am just muttering them at random.
13. 68. 2. 100. 49. 33. 81.
I snap back into awareness when I hear a bolt shift heavily. The cell door moans, announcing that it is being opened, and reveals a man standing on the other side. From my perspective, still slouched on the floor, the first thing I see is his large, hefty boots. Glancing upwards, I barley register the bulky body that fills out his uniform before an intimidating stare greets me. He warns me with his narrowed eyes; he is not somebody to be messed with.
“Follow me.”
I follow him. I deserve this. I am guilty.
Except, there is something that nobody else in the courtroom knew. The woman’s teeth could transform themselves into pointy fangs. Her skin was cold, too cold, like there was no life inside of her. She was guilty too. She had murdered many. Love them, use them, dispose of them. Her repetitive mantra; a style of life stretching back centuries.
I was next.
I escaped.
I am innocent.