Silence

Chapter One
      St. Pölten, Austria, December 30th 1946
     
      The year was 1946. I'm not sure how to start this tale, for it was all very dreamlike when it happened. Perhaps it was a dream. I do not know. It was a cold winter in Styria, and I was roaming Europe, for I did not have a home. No one would want a creature like me. I had been a nurse on the Polish front in the Second World War, and I thought I had been killed. Had the bullet not entered my head? And yet unlike the other nurses serving, I had not been killed. But I was not alive, either.
     
          It is a strange phase of existence, that of being a vampire. Perhaps it is something like purgatory? Not that I know much about that. Whatever it is, it separated me, my mind, from the corporeal realm. Existence was so much like a misty dream. I had enjoyed reading the books about vampires as a young girl -- Dracula in particular comes to mind -- and seeing them in the pictures, but it treated vampires as if they were creatures of darkness, demons even, a corruption of all that is good and wholesome and British. A rather unsettling thought. Me, a demon? Which is when I realized Bram Stoker knew nothing really about the undead. But this is so boring for you, my lovely reader, so I'll get on with my story. Hopefully it will make a nice bedtime story.
     
          The snow was falling softly, making my hair white. My hair. I really don't know what to do with it. It curls so unnaturally, all over the place, big black curls. I had a friend back in my human days who said my hair was like great black spiders atrophying. That image makes my stomach sick, especially in relation to what is covering my head.
          I was coming to a town in Austria, one that was recovering from Austria's little stint as Ostmark. It was really a nice place, or had once been, but the War had made it a centre for sordid goings-on, that is crime and poverty and prostitution -- basically all that tastes foul in humanity. I wouldn't feed on anyone there unless I was absolutely desperate. And I am not desperate. I mean can you imagine how crude their blood must be? All full of cheap beers and debauchery and disease. Ugh.
     
          In the billowing smoke from the train station, a lone passenger disembarked. She was a young woman, of Asian descent, wearing layers of masculine clothing and having the look about her of someone who has been traveling for days, her long black hair being an unkempt mess hanging in her face. But I suppose she was the sort of woman who could be called beautiful. Why I mention this you may wonder; these details may seem superfluous. But her beauty, a balcony, and a sufficient amount of moonlight turned her into a Bathsheba of her own right later on. We walked past each other and she gave me a look of suspicion as she lit a cigarette. Why did she look at me that way? I mean...well, I guess it did look a bit strange. I was wearing nothing but a flimsy white dress, and my feet were bare on the snow.
     
          I continued to roam down the streets of this unpleasant little town, until I heard a piercing shriek from where the woman had gone to, a dark street by an abandoned building. Don't get me wrong. I absolutely despise the pretentious sort who love to play hero, and I wasn't running to see what was wrong for that reason. I just wanted to.
     
          But she was no damsel in distress. I came into the abandoned building the scream had came from, and there she stood, blood-spattered, a stake in her hand. It was still poised in the air when I came in, and she just looked at me. We were both silent for a good awkward minute. I looked at her, she looked at me, I looked at the stake, she looked at the stake. Finally she laughed and held it less threateningly, down by her side. But she was still holding it.
     
          "I am so sorry this is the first impression I give." She bowed and wiped spattered vampire blood off her face with a gloved hand. "I'm Komori Kurome." She had the good grace not to make me shake hands.
     
          I was still surprised by...by all of it, frankly. I was a young vampire and this was the first killing of a vampire I'd seen. Don't worry, there's still more yet to come. So anyway, I was too shocked to introduce myself properly. I just mumbled, "What's...what's all this?"
     
          "This? This is -- was -- a nosferatu. It was sent to kill me."
     
          "Why?"
     
          She took a drag of her cigarette. "My ancestor wronged the queen of the damned, Carmilla. She's had murdered every last one of my family, and I'm the only one left. I've been running across Europe to get away from her assassins, but they just keep coming. I think she's running out, but that's actually worse."
     
          "Why?"
     
          "Because once she runs out of her little minions, then the real vampires start coming. And quite frankly, I don't know if I could handle an ancient vampire the way I can handle a baby one." She looked at me calmly, a moonbeam thrown across her features. "You're obviously a vampire. Are you here to kill me?"
     
          "What? I -- no!"
     
            She smiled slyly. "Well, then you're coming with me."
     
          What can I say? I didn't have anything better to do.
     
      Chapter Two
      The Castle Karnstein, Austria, December 30 1946
     
      Oh, how I love the night! It is like a shroud that envelops us daughters of it. I am so very happy at night. Very happy I was when I came down the great stone steps of the Castle Karnstein that snowing night, anticipating another night of moon-watching and waiting -- waiting for my dear hearts, my vampire children, to bring me the little girl who carries the last of the Komori bloodline in her veins. But they've all failed so far. It's so sad, because the ones she does not kill herself, who come back to me, telling tales of their infinite failures, well, I have to sew their lips shut, to properly punish them. But happiness is in my heart nevertheless.
     
          "'How good it is to see the Moon!'" I recited. Oh, Salome, the most beautiful of all the written works of humankind. "'She is cold and chaste, like a little coin of silver. Yes, I am sure the Moon is a virgin. She has a virgin beauty'-- oh! The clouds are covering the Moon to-night...how dark and silent the night is, without her. It is so dark-- pray, Cesare, do wake up." I looked out of the corner of my eye at the coffin which is Cesare's. Who is Cesare? I found him, a bizarrerie kept by a traveling mountebank, some years ago. He is a sleepwalker. And so I made him one of my children, to keep me company in the lonely halls of the Castle Karnstein. Only then did I find what poor company he is. He is so very sullen, and sleeps all the time. I think it is to escape me. I am too much for most people.
     
          A lonely creaking I heard, and a long-fingered hand of white lifted the coffin lid. His bedraggled head lifted out and he regarded me with weary eyes. Why so serious? I twirled off the staircase and knelt by his coffin.
     
          "Dear heart, I need you to do something very important for me. All my other children have failed to kill the last Komori remaining. I've saved you until now, for you are stronger than all my other children were. I know you don't want your lips sewn shut, do you, dear heart, so of course you'll do this thing for me. 'And I will let fall for you a flower, a little green flower' --"
     
          "You can keep your flowers, Countess. What is it you want me to do?"
     
          "Oh, right, I got carried away. I want you to track down the last Komori, and bring her to me. I'll kill her myself. And don't forget to smile!"
     
      Chapter Three
      Rural Styria, Austria, January 13 1947
     
          Komori and I traveled for about two weeks before we encountered any difficulty. We had stopped in a village in Styria for a while. It had been abandoned for a long time, I'd heard, over half a century at least, but in the past years it had become re-inhabited. The villagers were a superstitious people, one woman in particular crossing herself as I walked past. I trailed a step behind Komori as we passed through the village, and I suddenly met eyes with a strange pale wisp of a girl, dried rosemary tangled in her long blonde hair, her wide, sadly staring eyes fixed on me. I asked Komori if she had seen her when we passed, but she had not.
     
          We sat amongst a blossoming of lilies idly, the sky golden in the late afternoon sun. I picked a lily from the grass and began plucking white petals one by one, transfixed by it, how softly yellow it looked in the light that remained before the coming darkness.
     
          "Nosferatu, how is it you don't burn in the sunlight?"
     
          "I...I don't really know myself. I think that detail was added by the films -- and would you stop calling me 'Nosferatu'? It's becoming annoying. Do I look anything like Count Orlok? ...No, no, don't answer that, you silly twit. There is no resemblance. None."
     
          That reminded me. I watched my hand creep like a pale spider across the grass, to pick up a pretty little poppet I had made. A poppet is something like the voodoo dolls of Hollywood notoriety, but they aren't just for cursing the person they were made to affect, as is the idea transfixed in the popular consciousness. In this case, it was a protective charm for Komori. I had fashioned it to look like a simple bat on a string, like a puppet, playing off the meaning of her name -- Komori -- which meant 'bat' in Japanese. I held it up and half-smiled.
     
          A look of vague concern crossed her features. "What's that?"
     
          "It's a poppet. It'll protect you a little from what will try to harm you."
     
          Komori smiled, but you could plainly see this made her more uncomfortable than she had been in the first place. "Thank you...that's very sweet of you."
     
          It was quiet as the twilight settled in. I was mentally unattached from what was going on, watching the lights slowly be lit in the distant village. When I snapped out of my reverie,  Komori had risen and was walking toward the dark forests. I let her go without saying anything. I stretched back on the grass and lay with a lily in my hands, breathing in the air. It smelt strange and sweet, like ancient blood. But it couldn't be ancient blood I was smelling, could it?
     
          Just then a scream came from the forests. I sat upright and stared at the forests, deciding whether the scream sounded like Komori or not. I decided not to take any chances and got up, scattered lily petals as I did so. I went into the forest. The darkness was rapidly closing in, and rain started pouring, soaking me like a wet cat. My dress clung to me, losing its flowing quality as it became drenched. There was little visibility in the semidarkness and rain, but I could almost make out -- a spindly figure in the difference. And what was that it was holding? A small person. Komori!
     
          I called out after the figure and ran through the rain till I came unexpectedly face-to-face with her kidnapper. He was a vampire. A real, live, vampire! The first vampire I'd seen beside myself. He had bedraggled hair falling in his face and atrocious bags under his eyes. Really, you think mine are bad, you should have seen this one's. He snarled and I flinched. I instinctively hissed.
     
          "Y-you don't scare me. Who do you think you are, carrying her off like that -- Cesare?" I am a liar. I was more scared than I'd ever been.
     
          "Actually, yes. You young vampires are all the same. All looking for a fight they'll never win. I don't know, maybe Carmilla would've dealt with this situation better, but you're wasting my time."
     
          There are times in life when you have to fight, even if it is indeed a losing battle. This was one of those times. And what a gloriously hopeless losing battle it was. Before I knew it, I was on the ground, my eyes in such pain that I thought I'd go insane, right there...I was blind. And then he was gone, and she was gone, leaving only silence.
     
      Chapter Four
      Rural Styria, Austria, January 13 1947
     
          By now you, reader, are under the impression that I am A. absolutely helpless, and B. a nice person. What else would anyone think about an introverted former nurse who's story has been like this? As far as it goes for A., there have been witches in Slavic folklore. Perhaps you remember them from your childhood, the fairy tales and folklore of Baba Yaga and Nocnitsa. It's true, I knew even that before I entered the world of the undead. Of course, before this it was all very subtle, making sure Polish soldiers got healed properly, a love spell once, that sort of thing. But now that I was stranded in the wilderness, blinded, I had a vague idea of what to do.
     
          I had eyes, indeed...on my hands.
     
          Don't overthink it. There were lovely large blue eyes, on my hands.
     
          As for B...I would generally agree. But this vampire had come, kidnapped my only friend, and caused me more pain and suffering than I would assume is normal in life. I was a fury; perhaps I have an overdeveloped sense of justice, but I was hellbent on making him pay.
     
          Let's find out whether revenge tastes as sweet as they say.
     
      Chapter Five
      The Castle Karnstein, Austria, January 13 1947
     
          Ohh...where am I?
     
          I slowly, dreadingly, opened my eyes, only to see -- what else? -- a pale woman with a manic grin on her face. I screamed and scrambled to my feet. I've gotten so I can sniff out a vampire from miles away, and she had ''nosferatu" practically written in blood all over. And possibly "mania", too. I backed up against a cold stone wall -- I was in a castle of some kind -- and looked at her through my stringy hair.
     
          "Who are you?"
     
          She spread her hands out and smiled. She had elongated her smile with makeup, so she looked like some sort of perpetually grinning doll. "I am the Countess Carmilla Karnstein."
     
          I turned cold with fear and the only thought that flitted through my head was, so this is what it is like to look at death. Vampires are sadistic. They almost feed off fear. So I tried to look calm, which was hard considering the fact I'm neurotic...
     
          "So now you have me. The game's over. Are you going to kill me?"
     
          She crept over -- crept, I say, but she had a strange loping gait, like a ballerina, almost -- till she was close to me. Always smiling. My God, doesn't your face hurt?
     
          "Dear heart, I've been around no-one but Cesare for the past fifty years. It gets so boring! So pray talk to me for a bit, and then we'll see what happens...your feet, have you noticed, they are like 'little white doves'." She crossed and uncrossed her hands, and out of them came a dove. It flew off into the night sky.
     
            No, it looked like I was still playing the game, and it had just gotten a lot more deadly.
     
      Chapter Six
      The Castle Karnstein, Austria, January 13 1947   
     
          I trailed through the halls of the Castle Karnstein. Earlier this night, a little dove had brought to me an olive branch -- you must think I'm speaking metaphorically, but a dove actually came and brought me an olive branch. These things do happen. It brought a little joy to my heart, for it at least gave me hope that Koromi was still alive.
     
          My hand-eyes glanced around a dusty velvet curtain, and I slipped through. There were the Countess and Koromi. Koromi noticed me first, and her black hair fell on her face as she looked sideways at me. And then the queen of the damned herself whipped her head around, and her face lit up. She seemed so happy. I think it was to hide the darkness in her soul. And I don't mean darkness as in evil, necessarily, though I think she's that too -- darkness as in the pain of antiquity.
     
          "Oh, dear heart, it seems we have a little guest," said Carmilla. She seemed pleasant, but she suddenly spat out, "Cesare! Kill the witch!"
     
          Carmilla grabbed Komori's arm with a vicelike grip and ran out to some other place in the castle, dragging Komori along with her.
     
          Once again Cesare and I were face-to-face. He rose from his coffin, looked at me sullenly, and threw insults at me in such scorn. "You freak, you witch--"
     
          My hair. Oh, my hair. I would that it was prettier, more like actual hair, but no. It reached out and seized the sleepwalker, and began to suffocate and squeeze him like a boa constrictor. It squeezed and squeezed, till finally it dropped him, lifeless, at my feet. My hand-eyes looked away. My spite was gone. I didn't have to drink his blood to know; revenge is not sweet.
     
      Chapter Seven
      The Castle Karnstein, Austria, January 13th 1947
     
          I finally found Carmilla and Komori on the balcony, drenched in moonlight. Carmilla sensed me immediately. I just stood there; if she was going to kill Komori now, I wasn't going to be able to stop her. I had to watch and wait. It's a horrible feeling, of being a spectator on some awful thing and not being able to do anything about it. I've known this feeling for a long time.
     
          Suddenly Carmilla whipped around and brutally, oh so brutally, bit Komori. Blood spurted out onto the white stone of the balcony. It was so silent for a few moments, and then she let her go, blood trickling down her chin and white bosom.
     
          Why had she stopped? It was so silent I could hear a heartbeat. Komori's dimming one. Fading slowly...and then it all became so clear, to both of us I think, judging from Komori's expression. The game she had been playing had been very different from the initial one. This new game was a game of bloody hearts and madness.
     
          Carmilla was turning Komori into one of the damned.
     
          I will not try to decipher the code of Carmilla's infatuation. All that mattered now was Komori's next move in this twisted game of chess. I watched through my hands. Her face was so pale in the moonlight. She wiped blood from her neck and looked at it, then looked at me. Then all of a sudden, a kind of strange resolve formed in her eyes. Komori was no butterfly. She ran up to the edge of the balcony, looked up at the full moon. It was shining whitely on us all. I thought I heard her say, softly, to herself, "It's as if the Moon is a watchful angel...I wonder, is she watching?"
     
          And then Komori had jumped off the balcony, disappearing like a bat into the darkness of the night.
     
          I neither applaud nor decry her decision. She simply valued her humanity more than her life. Maybe she's right. In any case, Carmilla started mumbling something very quickly. "'When you spoke I heard strange music'...and now that strange music is gone, and you are gone, and there is only silence!" Her mumblings had crescendo-ed into shrieks, and she was on the floor. "IT IS SO SILENT!"
     
          I watched her. She had been strange before, but now she was losing her sanity by various degrees. Suddenly she rose, and as she spread her arms out to embrace the night, a long grey funeral shroud fluttered on the breeze. Her last words, were a quote, I think, from that play by Oscar Wilde, Salome.
     
          "The Mystery of Love is greater than the Mystery of Death!" Carmilla wrapped herself tightly in the funeral shroud. And then it fluttered to the ground, and the queen of the damned was gone, leaving only me.
     
          I nudged the shroud with my foot, then picked it up and wrapped it around my shoulders, to keep away the coldness of the night. I looked up at the Moon. Maybe she really is a watchful angel...
     
      THE END