My Curse

Vampires are creatures of the night, dwelling in the dark places of the world, as well as our imagination. By some they are viewed as monsters, by others they are just another organism trying to survive, and by some woman they are highly romanticized. We see them in movies, read about them in books, and even see people claiming to be vampires on TV. We think we know everything there is to know; we think vampires are just creations of horror writers or movie directors. What do we really know about them? Are they afraid of garlic, crosses, or holy water; can they be killed by a wooden steak to the heart, decapitation, fire, or water. Do they really lack a reflection? Can they walk among us during the day or will they burst into flame. Perhaps they are monsters, demons, or maybe just diseased people. Do they sleep in coffins? Are they really supernaturally strong and fast? Is there a feud between vampires and werewolves?

I am William Maxwell, a crypto zoologist, philosopher, cartographer, and historian. I guess you could say I am a jack of all trades. I am well read and educated and have mastered many skills including afore mentioned interests. I am also a good musician, I have learned three languages, and have worked on very promising scientific research, and done some archeological work. How have I had the time to learn all of these things, you ask? The answer is simple, I am a vampire.

I can tell you from personal experience all about what vampires can and can't do, what we're afraid of, what hurts or kills us, and what exactly we are. We are parasites, surviving off blood. As a man of God, I believe vampires are demons created by Satan to ruin God's world. We can only be killed by a couple things; piercing our heart, fire, or decapitation. We can't drown as we don't breathe, we can take bullets anywhere but the heart, disease does not effect us, and we can't bleed out because we can just go find someone to feed off of. The superstitions about garlic, crosses, and holy water are just that, superstition. We technically can be out during the day, but our eyesight is so sensitive that we have to wear shades or we will go blind, literally. We sleep in beds just like you not coffins, and we do have reflections. Honestly, whoever came up with half of these erroneous beliefs was on acid and deserves to have his jugular ripped out and eaten like an apple. As for the race war between werewolves and vampires, that is one of the few things that have been historically accurate.

The story I want to tell you is chilling and macabre, those of you who are afraid of the things that go bump in the night, I advise you to stop reading and find something else to do. You will be scared by this and you will never look at the world, or the night, the same way again. So if this is you then go watch TV and be content with the small neat little box that you fit your life into and keep your arrogant narrow understanding of the world.

I was born in 1837 in a small town called Bradley which was just off the Thames River. It was a small, quiet, fishing village. When I was twenty nine years old I was to be married to into a wealthy upper class family as was arranged by my parents at birth. The family I was to be married into was a friend of my fathers and they had made a deal of some sort. She was a beautiful woman, charming, strong, and very smart for the time. She was a tall, slim woman with blonde hair, blue eyes and fair skin. At the time I was a philosopher and historian.

Anyway on my honeymoon, in the throws of passion, my new bride bit me, and at the time I thought it was just kinky sex. Then she drew blood and I began to think she was a cannibal. Luckily the candle by the window caught the drapes on fire and she was too busy with me to realize it and I was dying. The flames crept their way over to our bed and began climbing. Quickly they moved up the blankets and onto her long flowing hair. While she burned I made my way, crawling, over to the door and was about to leave the room when I heard a terrible noise, which sounded like a cross between a whale call and a shriek. It sent a shiver up my spine. I turned to look back at her one last time. She was no longer beautiful; she had become an ugly monster. Her face was distorted in pain and her eyes were horrible like she had no trace of sanity left in her mind. Her face began to melt in front of me and I couldn't watch anymore, I would be sick.

When I escaped I hobbled around the city for hours unsure of where I should go, until I was out of strength. I collapsed in the middle of the street, which was the last thing I remember, until I came to in the hospital. I could hear the sounds of footsteps walking every which way. I felt sick, sicker than I had ever felt in my life. The smells of sickly people, vomit, death and afterbirth were invading my nose, I couldn't stop myself and I threw up. I opened my eyes and tried to get my bearings, it seemed I was in a hospital in London. I was wearing a white backless shirt and no pants.  I began to think about what had happened I of course had to tell the doctors, perhaps I had caught the Plague, I thought, because at the time vampires were an unheard of concept. I was becoming afraid for my life, and the doctors were not very forth-coming with their information. I had explained to them what had happened, and they said that I must have caught the Plague from the spit to blood contact. This, in a sense was true, but it wasn't the Plague that I received. One morning as I was finding it difficult to stay conscious, I heard the doctor talking to a nurse.

"I don't think he will make it through the night. There isn't anything else we can do for him. Make him comfortable and in the morning when he has passed we must burn his body and clean the bed for the next patient. Make sure he has plenty of water to help with the fever and pain. Do you understand?"

"Yes, of course, doctor."

I was barely coherent when I heard all of this but I was coherent enough to know that I would soon be dead. The next few days were literal hell. I could feel the Reapers cold skeletal hand on my shoulder, he was a patient demon, he would wait for me to succumb and die. I was barely conscious half the time and the other half I was deathly ill. As I passed out for what I thought to be the last time I cursed my disease-ridden bride and hoped that she burned in hell. Then I dissolved into darkness and a sweet oblivion free of pain.

I awoke sometime later and was baffled. Why had I not died, did God send me back to fix something left undone? I got out of the bed and found that I had no more pain; it looked to be about noon outside, which perplexed me even more as there were no orderly about. I walked around the room for a minute and glanced at the clock and was staggered. The clock said one o' clock. It was really too early for anyone to be here, but to me it looked as if it was noon. My eyesight was phenomenal! I could see as if it were the middle of the day!

I left the room and looked up and down the hall, I saw no one. I found the hall to be odd, as if it was longer than it really was. I felt odd, like I had been drugged. The ground seemed to move under my feet; up and down, like I was in a funhouse. I became very nervous when I noticed the blood on the hallway floor. I could smell the blood too; it smelled sickly sweet, like hot gasoline, it was over powering my nose. I kneeled down and dipped the tip of my finder in and tasted it, and it was wonderful. Before I could stop myself I started licking the floor, by the time I had stopped I cleaned the entire floor. I was terrified by what I had just done turned for the door.

I began toward the front doors of the hospital, infirmaries were small back then. Anyway, when I got there I heard a maddening ticking noise. It grated on my nerves, what in the bloody blue blazes was it? I turned around and looked behind me, on the wall behind the reception desk an old standing clock. That was the strange ticking noise, I thought confused, but I could hear it as if I had my ear on it, Incredible I thought! It appears my hearing was improved as well, and I would wager all my savings that my other senses were heightened as well.

I walked outside and found the noises, smells, and street lamps to be assaulting. I smelt the sick from those with the plague, horse manure, candle wax, rain, and mud. I was nearly overwhelmed, luckily I saw an alley to the right of the street and I left the main road blessing God for small miracles. It was then that I caught the scent of a person ahead of me. I could hear a thump, thump sound that began to be bothersome. I discovered it was a heartbeat! I walked forward and saw a woman to my left, she was dirty and disheveled. Before I knew what I was doing I grabbed the woman and lifted her up by the throat. Physically I knew what I was doing, but mentally I couldn't believe it. I couldn't stop myself, I easily broke her neck and sunk my teeth into her neck and drained her body of its life-force.

Terrified of what I had just done I ran as fast as I could away from the scene of my awful cannibalistic crime. While running I became aware of my speed I was running faster than a horse at full speed it was incredible, yet horrible. What sort of demon had I become? I wandered for quite a while, I don't know how long exactly, and ended up at my church. I decided to go in and talk to the priest there; he was a strange man, not very priest-like. He seemed to know more about some things than he let on. If anyone knew what had happened to me it was him.

When I got inside the church for the first time in my life I felt out of place, like I didn't belong in the house of God. I tried to discreetly walk my way over to the confessional. I got into the box and closed the door and took a few moments to calm myself.

It was hard to see him through the screen in the confessional, but seeing him during services on Sundays I knew what he looked like. He was tall and fair looking, with blonde hair and blue eyes. His eyes were seemed to me the eyes of a man who has traveled far and wide and seen his fair share of the world's evil, not those of a priest. He had a scar on his right cheek where it looked like something had attacked him and clawed into his face. He wore the typical vestment and a cross over his bosom. He had a limp and always favored his right leg. His voice was grizzly and tired, not quiet and droning or calm with inner-peace like you would expect. 

"Hello father," I said. "I didn't know who else to turn to, you, have always been a friend to me. Something terrible has happened to me. I was recently wed as you know, well on my honeymoon my bride tried to eat me. I believe she was a cannibal! I was lucky the room caught on fire as she drained my body of most of its blood and I was too weak to stop her. I ended up at the infirmary where I almost died and killed and drained a homeless woman of her blood. I am scared and confused; I don't know what to do."

"Interesting, and did you really die, I need absolute surety, not just possibility."

"I am positive that I died. I saw light and then nothing."'

. "Well then you will need to follow me, you will not speak about this while we walk. We will be going down into the basement of the church; I have information in my room down there that would be of use to you."

We left the confessional and took a sharp left, through a door leading to a spiral staircase. I was tired and in pain all over and I felt like I might vomit. When we got into the basement we went thought the first door to the right into his bedroom. As soon as we entered he closed the door silently behind us.

"What is it you wanted me to see? What kind of information do you have? I don't see how anything a son of God could help me in this situation. Do you know what has happened to me?"

"If you did not believe the church could help you, you wouldn't have come here. As for the information that I have it is actually a story that will explain to some degree what has happened to you. It is a story of a young boy named Lucas, he lived in Germany. One day, on his eighteenth birthday he went into the woods to find a piece of wood large enough to carve into a likeness of his father as thanks for his birthday party. While he was meandering about he came across a house that he didn't remember being there. Curious he knocked on the door and when nobody answered he went in. The house was old and in disrepair. He climbed the stairs to the second floor and found a woman in master bedroom, asleep. He was taken aback by her incredible beauty. He was entranced and crept up to her bedside and thought that he would steal a kiss. He knelt down on got close to her face.

Suddenly she rose and grabbed his neck and bit hard into his flesh! He fell backward surprised, afraid, and in pain. Her face had become ugly and inhuman, he ran from the house as fast as he could and went home. He told his parents of what had transpired and they said they believed the woman to be a cannibal. When they went looking for the house they could not find it. Eventually they gave up and left for home. The next day the parents found their son dead, grief stricken they called their family doctor.

The doctor could not figure out what had killed the boy, he had not been sick; he was not maimed or bludgeoned. The doctor concluded that a demon had taken their child's soul and left his body. Two days later at the funeral, which was open casket, they found the coffin to be empty baffled everybody left. Soon after his death village women began going missing and their bodies would be found later without blood. One, night one of the girls managed to escape and went back to the town and recalled what had happened to her. She said she saw a cute boy in the woods and when she went to speak to him he attacked and bit her on the arm and tried to drain her blood. His face became monstrous and horrible, like looking into the face of pure evil. She hit him in the face with a stick and he fell unconscious.

A year later, the boy's body was found outside in the town center, ripped apart and hardly recognizable. The villagers were thankful to their gods saying they had shown them mercy. A few smarter villagers, however, believed that a larger more powerful demon had killed the first. Nobody knows for sure what happened but they believe the woman was a vampire and had changed the boy.

You see what has happened to you? You have become a monster, a soulless demon sucking the life out of people. You cannot go back to your old life as there is no cure for vampirism.

"What do I do, do I kill myself to stop me from killing others," I asked hysterically.

"Suicide is a sin," he said. "However, your soul is already condemned to hell. Nothing you do can stop what will happen, but perhaps if you die gracefully without killing others, God will take pity on you on and make your time in hell easier."

"What do you mean die gracefully; I am screwed no matter what I do. There is no graceful death in this only damnation."

"Graceful death would be allowing you to be cleansed by a son of God. To have your cursed existence ended by a priest."

"You want to kill me? That would condemn you to hell along with me, priests are forbidden to kill under any circumstances."

"It would not be a killing, it would be cleansing a dark, evil, taint on the earth. If you have any humanity left you will not stop me."

He sat down on his bed and reached between the mattresses and brought out a dagger. One moment he was sitting there the next he lunged at, unfortunately for him compared to me his speed was sluggish. I caught his wrist and crushed it. He and collapsed on the ground, blind to all but his own world of violent pain. I walked quickly over to his desk and find his books on vampires and related things and then turned to leave. On my way out the priest stood back up and tried to step into my way. He grabbed the torch off the wall and waved it around at me, I backed up afraid. He went to thrust the torch into my stomach but my vampiric instincts took over and I stopped the torch threw it on his bed. It caught fire immediately and began creeping around the room.

I turned back to the priest, the more immediate threat. He looked at me with a strange evil-looking gleam in his eyes. He suddenly pulled his robes off, revealing his naked body, and his face began to elongate. He started growing hair and his feet began to grow forward. I could hear his bones cracking, his muscles straining to stay connected to the changing bones. He fell down on his hands, and whimpered slightly, and I don't blame him, that transformation looked painful. He finished changing and stared at me a few moments and then suddenly looked to the window outside and howled. This was no ordinary howl either, it was terrible, a hybrid between a wolves's cry, a human man screaming, and a war call. He, or rather it, rose to its feet, snarling. I backed away slowly, cautiously, not wanting to provoke the wolf-man into attacking me.

Unfortunately, he attacked regardless, pinning me against the wall pushing me. He was stronger than he should have been, abnormally strong. He was forcing my face into the brick wall. It was actually starting to crack the wall behind me. I pushed at his throat, trying desperately to stay conscious. In a final effort to get away I pressed my fingers into his eyes harder and harder, until I gouged his eyes out. He howled and jumped backward, shaking his head back and forth violently.

Blind and furious, he snarled and lunged at me, using his nose to locate me. I jumped to the left just in time to avoid his claws. He turned and lunged again I tried to dodge and almost escaped his paws, but his claws caught my Achilles tendon. Temporarily blinded by pain and unable to stand, my vampiric instincts took over and I used my other senses to fight him. He lunged at my face, feeling the vibration from leaving the floor and hearing the air move around him, I took the impact and fell onto my back, then flung him over my head and into the wall.

Before he could get back up, I grabbed him by the arms, not again I thought. It could not be stopped however; I ripped out his jugular and drink from the fountain that was spraying out of his neck. Then I cast his body aside and, hearing voices in the hallway, I decided to leave through the small window on the wall just under the ceiling.

I made it to the top of a small house, and stared down at the church as it burned to the ground. I was horrified by what I had done, yet there was a twisted exhilaration mingled in with my fear. I am a coward I thought; I should have let the priest kill me. I was to afraid of what will happen to me after death to let myself be cleansed. Is this what my eternal life will consist of, running from place to place ruining everything I come in contact with? That is not a life it is a curse, my curse to bear.