Travel Bug (12 page)

“What are you saying, Clive?”

“You’ve lost your talent for being a monster. I would have made a far better vampire. I’m already a monster.”

Now Clive slowly walked backwards. He was surprised to see the sharp, sinister teeth slowly forming in Bruce’s mouth. Then he walked towards the window and opened up the blinds fully. The sunlight came crashing inside the room. Clive took the wooden stake and attempted to plunge it deep into Bruce’s heart.

“I warned you not to underestimate me, Clive.”

Clive was confused and shocked. The stake broke over Bruce’s chest like Clive had plunged it into an iron wall. Then he walked backwards again and to his sheer horror he realized Bruce was standing directly in front of the sunlight. Apparently, he was not affected by the sun at all. Clive knew he was in serious trouble.

“I’ve fed on the blood of babies. Do you really think that I won’t kill a man such as yourself, Clive?”

“No,” he said bravely.

“You didn’t really read those stories all that carefully, did you?”

“I suppose not.”

“I asked you if you were a religious man.”

“Sir, you know I’m not.”

“That’s unfortunate. You see sunlight and big stakes and garlic are useless. They will never kill my kind.”

“What would have done the job, Bruce?”

“A crucifix, holy water or a communion wafer would kill me anytime. Day or night, they would have done the job sufficiently. You were right about one thing, Clive.”

“What was that?”

“Writing a children’s book was a foolish idea. I think that graphic, terrifying tales of horror are more suited to my…… taste.”

“Now hold on, please, Bruce.”

The vampire looked at him and laughed. Did he really think that he could talk his way out of this one? The old killer instinct was returning and Bruce was once again longing for the taste of human blood.

“I want you to see these changes I made on your last horror novel. I didn’t make too many but I took the liberty of making a few.”

“Fine but I’m still sucking you dry in a few moments.”

“Look at the changes I made in your manuscript,” King said, lighting an especially long cigar. Bruce’s curiosity got the better of him despite the acrid smoke circling his head and playing with his eyes, turning them dark orange instead of a mere bright red. Bruce bent over King’s desk to look at the changes, and King struck with uncanny speed.

King was pointing to a paragraph with his letter opener. As Bruce studied his words, which didn’t seem any different than what he had written originally, King turned the pointed end of the opener up toward them and tilted it towards Bruce’s heart. King’s other hand gripped the back of Bruce’s neck and without warning, pushed down very hard. Bruce fell forward and the letter opening stake pierced the vampire’s still beating heart. Blood spilled onto his manuscript as the vampire sprawled forward on his own story. There was blood soaked all over some of his best writing.

“That’ll take care of you, jerk,” said King. How he resented that his chance at immortality died with one of his many authors. The resentment he felt was only matched by his great pride at beating the vampire. This was true despite the fact that Bruce had not been much of a real vampire in a very long time… probably centuries…

“Is everything okay?” asked King’s Secretary Ann. She was an older woman who needed every pound she could earn after her husband’s death. Ann was an excellent, hardworking employee. He was not sure how she knew how to find him but that didn’t matter. She was there.

“Type up a reminder for me, would you Ann? We need a new policy. No more vampires for clients. They’re all SOB’s. Every last bloody one of them is!”

“Yes sir,” chirped his secretary of only a week. “Does that include your office staff as well?”

“No, of course not,” replied King. “Ann, I’ve been meaning to compliment you on doing such a fine job. Hiring you was one of the best decisions I ever made.”

Ann made sure that her superior was well protected. She brought with her several letter openers her late husband had purchased. He bought them while doing business in Transylvania some years back. They were made from the wooden stakes by the local peasants. Like Bruce had said, big stakes don’t always do the trick. Many a superstitious Transylvania peasant learned that the hard way.

I was just getting over the trauma of smelling the smoke that came from another human being burned alive……

“Jesus, Andrew,” said Harold.

“I know, I thought we would be home by now.”

“I feel like we’re in hell,” said Harold.

“So do I, Harold,” I answered him.

The room was dark but then a mysterious figure turned a light on. He was masked. There were eight masked men, if one could loosely call them that. They were men in the sense of the guards at Auschwitz, the men who fed Christians to the lions and the men who burned women alive for alleged witchery.

“We’re only a day or two in the present or the future,” said my great grandfather.

“I know, Harold.”

The terrified man was dressed up in an orange suit, similar to the ones that suspects in certain maximum security prisons had.

“Oh, Christ,” said Harold.

He begged for his life and then was pushed down on a hard, stone floor, almost cracking his skull open. The video cameras were rolling right in front of his eyes.

“My God, we can’t do a thing,” I said.

“No.”

A knife, the type one would find in a kitchen, not very sharp at all was placed at his throat. Then slowly, nauseatingly, excruciatingly, unspeakably the terrorist sadistically took his time and decapitated him.

Home again.

“Oh dear God!” my great grandfather screamed, at the top of his lungs.

I was silent.

“Andrew?”

I could not speak.

“Andrew, please talk to me, please.”

“I… I…”

“Please, son…”

I fainted.

“Son, are you alright?” asked my great grandfather.

“I… I… think so…”

“Good,” he answered me.

“I…”

“Son, you’re in shock.”

“Harold, I must be…”

“If it makes you feel any better…”

“Nothing…”

He picked me up off of the hard, dirt floor of the secret cave.

“Andrew?”

“Pop……”

“Hell, you’ve never called me that…”

“Please, for the love of Christ, pop. Pour me a drink so fucking strong I might just blessedly black out. Then tell me about my wonderful, sweet great grandmother who died young……”

“You’ve got it, kid.”

“Thank you.”

Harold poured Andrew a full glass of vodka.

“A kitchen knife for God’s sake! Couldn’t they just shoot him in the fucking head? What kind of people are these?”

“The same kind that burned women alive for being witches during the Middle Ages,” he said. “An ignorant person who can’t move on and live in the present day and age and that is probably due to brainwashing.”

“I see. True religious fanaticism…”

“I’m glad you understand.”

“Thanks, Harold.”

“Why could you survive watching witch burnings and the Holocaust and still come out not too fucked up?”

“Well… I see… your point… but…”

“What?” he asked sincerely.

“History…”

“Do you mean you understand?” he asked me.

“Surely, I mean all of us obscenely wealthy folks; just assume the cruel landowners of the past have nothing to do with us. It’s also nice to assume that despite all the violent crime, unspeakable sadism has nothing to do with America but it does!”

“That God forsaken bug is not the reason for human evil, either,” he said.

“What did your late wife think about evil?”

He knew I was trying, desperately, to forget about the horror.

“She thought the devil made innocents guilty and she died at the age of twenty one after giving birth to your grandfather.”

“I don’t have the words.”

“No, you don’t but I forgive you, son. You’ve been traumatized.”

“Did she know about the unnamed species?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Do tell,” I said.

“I told her on her death bed and she probably thought I was insane even then.”

I was very sorry and felt like an utter spoiled brat at how he was catering to me. On the other hand, no one should have their parents murdered!

“Why did this traumatize me so much?”

“It’s always easier to believe the evil takes place back in the past and that man is making evolutionary progress.”

He was right.

“I need to pass out now.”

“Then you can began again,” he said.

“Then I can began again,” I answered.

“We’re going to solve this…”

“Mystery,” I said.

“Yes,” he answered.

“The Rapture woman…”

“She is the key…”

“All I ever wanted to do was just innocently assume, that we live in a basically civilized age.”

“That was extremely naïve, even for a very, very wealthy man.”

“I know it was old man…”

“Who tells the truth anymore?” I asked him.

“I don’t know, Andrew. I suppose… the scribes.”

“There are no more scribes.”

“Where do you think we get the word scribble?”

We took a break; another well deserved one but just to get drunk for a day or two in the Poconos. What happens in Pennsylvania stays in Pennsylvania. It seemed like a good idea, hell we even took in a good comedy show or two but it was hard to forget the unspeakable evil we had witnessed. It was fun watching comics and drinking martinis and just hanging out with Harold. We had a ball but once again, we realized that all good things must come to an end. It was time for more dark travels courtesy of the living meat of the travel bug.

Home again.

“Where to then, Andrew, where do we go?”

The bug was full of its beautiful blackness, its creepy perfection. I looked deep into its devil red eyes. Asleep, thank God. I wonder what we would do if it escaped us. Would it murder the world or be harmless?

“Harold?”

“Yes?”

“How did our family come to inherit this splendid creature?”

“That’s a story for another time.”

There was a pause.

“Andrew, we need to eat the meat. Now…”

We did.

“Amazing,” said Harold.

“Oh, I agree.”

The scribes of the past, right before our eyes and we could never, ever look at life the same again.

“My God, Andrew…”

“No, not our God……”

Scribes wrote the story of Moses. They knew damn well that the parting of the red sea was a fable. And I thought there was either a shadow of doubt or they knew something that followers of Judaism and Christianity were not enlightened on. It was heartbreaking for us. These were not the Trinitarian Christian believers, so it wasn’t a shock of insufferable faith destroying pain. It was something else entirely.

“You know that I can see you are disappointed, son.”

“I know you’re older than me and brought up even more traditionally than me…”

“Nonsense, if I wasn’t filthy rich, those nuns would have blistered my hands a goddamn hell of a lot more. I was raised with tradition and forgiven by donations to the church.”

“Wow!”

“Andrew, you’re going to be a priest, this should trouble you far more…”

“Why? Because we were taught to sort of let go of the Old Testament. Kind of makes the miracles of Jesus stand out as the only real ones!”

“Yes, it does, glad I never studied for the priesthood.”

“I’m sure God’s pretty happy about that as well, dirty old man.”

“Well, you’re no virgin…”

The scribes were arguing…

“Harold, some believe it and some do not. I was wrong to think that none of them do.”

“Well, of course, Andrew. It’s all a matter of faith.”

“Should we see the real deal now? The parting of the Red Sea, so to speak, shall we pay a visit or not?”

“Sorry, no…”

“Why?”

“If there is one thing that I can honestly say it’s that traveling through time… tends to destroy religious faith.”

“What do you suppose that it did to our white haired witch?”

“She was a fat fundamentalist Christian. Now because of seeing time itself, real revelations, not some silly “end times” preacher’s nonsense, she saw the truth.”

“You know, Andrew, I believe you’re right, son. I suppose the truth did not set her free, it made her into this seductive white haired, heartbroken nihilist.”

“So are we are going to the Sermon on the Mount next?”

“No…”

“Why not? I asked.

“She saw what she saw,” he said. “That was what would destroy her life, forever. She would find life meaningless and would viciously fight back against anyone, particularly those who still had their faith.”

“The mystery is solved,” I said.

“Well, sort of.”

“What do you mean?”

“Andrew, we haven’t seen him either and if he isn’t what we’ve been taught…”

“It will ruin Christmas?”

“Yes, to say the least.”

Jesus of Nazareth, Christ the lord was the profound rabbi whose teachings inspired what became the largest monotheistic faith in human history. Now, although I was never someone who took all of scripture literally, I always took Jesus literally. Like the woman who murdered my parents, if I met Jesus and he wasn’t what I expected, my life would change forever. I might not try to get a dictator to destroy the world or give up on hope itself but I can’t lie about this. I would be forever altered.

“Andrew?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Great grandfather, why would you like to explore this part of time traveling?”

“The truth is what writing is all about.”

“Then how come half of the hired hands thought Moses never stepped across that deep river that led to the Promised Land. Holy hell, some of them thought there was never even a Moses!”

“I don’t care about radical socialist ideas of fighting for the poor or whether or not he loved his wine. I don’t care if that the theory of that preposterous book was true about him being married to Mary Magdalene. That doesn’t matter to me at all. Not even a little bit!”

“What does matter, Andrew?”