Vampire "Untitled" (Vampire "Untitled" Trilogy Book 1) (15 page)

Pathos. It was the only word Paul could find to
describe the strigoi. There was suffering to this character, but being dead
there was nothing that could be done about it now. It was as though an acute
sadness had coalesced into physical form; and this, this was his vampire.

“They did something unforgivable to you, didn’t they,”
Paul asked as a statement, not a question. The vampire turned through one
hundred and eighty degrees to face him.

“You are a spirit, a strigoi, you were inside a man
that was killed by the locals and bound to the earth.”

Paul realised just what it was he could see. This was
a human soul. He’d been told it infected a man and turned him evil, but the
soul itself was without conscience or desire to commit evil deeds. There was
nothing inside the vampire except sadness.

“You infected someone, didn’t you. You went into the
body of a man whose family then killed him. They didn’t understand that their
man was sick. Instead, they saw you. They killed him, buried him in the forest
because they didn’t see sickness, they only saw their own misguided fears.”

The vampire did not respond.

Paul stood and unwound the twine from his wrist and
set the small silver cross back down beside the laptop. The wall had returned
with story panels. The forest was gone, the vampire was gone. The only thing
that remained was stillness.

Paul walked to the window and looked to the mountains
beyond the tower block. “People here are foolish.” He whispered his words
softly to the vampire that was no longer there. “They murdered you and buried
you for no good reason. They were stupid and superstitious and they murdered
you for it. This isn’t fair. This is not right... It’s evil. But evil isn’t
even a strong enough word for what they’ve done, it’s worse than that... What
they’ve done,” he pictured the sad vampire’s face in his imagination again.
“What they did to you was a sin.”

----- X -----

It
was close to eight o’clock and his nerves were getting the better of him.

He felt like a teenager again and was enduring the
nervous energy he experienced the first time a girl had taken him to her
bedroom. He was just a kid really. He’d been invited to a girl’s room under the
pretence of doing homework. It was all plush pillows of pink and peach, teddy
bears on the bed, a hint of perfume in the air, a musical jewellery box with a
revolving ballerina figurine. All those details of a young girl’s room had set
his heart fluttering and that was what tonight felt like. This girl, this naive
and clingy Romanian girl who had held his hand when she was scared, then again
when she thought he was feeling sick, was coming round to socialise. There was
nothing to do here. No TV to watch, not even a movie on the laptop. There were
no bars or restaurants in Noua or anything else of interest. She knew this and
she’d still agreed to come and visit. Did she need help with her homework too?

When the bell rang Paul almost leapt out of the seat.
He paced the room quickly, composed himself, pulled his clothing straight, took
another sip of wine and then ambled to the door as casual as he could to look
through the spy hole. Ildico was there.

“Hi, how are you?”

Ildico barely looked up from her feet. She was holding
back tears. Paul motioned her into the hallway.

As she stepped forward he took hold of her coat to
help her take it off. It was a white puffer jacket and as he eased it off her
shoulders he realised he was holding it by the synthetic filling that had
spilled from a burst seam. “Oh, you’re coat is ripped, did you know?”

She said nothing verbally but her body language spoke
volumes.

“Was it Nealla?”

Ildico nodded, keeping her face away from him. “Yeah,
he introduced himself to me again the other day.” Paul struggled to find words
to say. “He’s an idiot.”

“I hate him,” she mumbled. “Can I use your bathroom?”

“Sure, it’s just this door here.”

As Ildico moved away Paul noticed that her eye makeup
was smeared through tears. She was dressed to impress again, in a silky figure
hugging top that showed how slender she was. The perfume was there again as was
the makeup and lipstick; but right now it was all wasted.

The bathroom door closed, the lock clicked shut.

He leaned against the wall and tapped the back of his
head against it a few times, symbolically rather than literally banging his
head against a wall. He sipped his wine and refilled the glass, pouring a
second for when Ildico emerged.

The sound of running water and a little splashing came
from the bathroom.

Whilst she was in there, Paul examined the tear in her
coat. He could hold the seam with the safety pins from his first-aid and sewing
kits. He always had a first-aid kit when he travelled; be prepared as they
teach the Boy Scouts, always be prepared. He was prepared for a cut finger or a
loose button. He even had condoms in his backpack which were now under his
pillow in the ultimate preparation, but the Boy Scouts hadn’t taught how to
prepare for a crying girl locked in the bathroom. This wasn’t how tonight was
supposed to go.

Fucking Nealla. The guy is a cunt and he should be
fucking burnt alive. Perhaps I should just stab the fucker. Here I am trying to
get off with Ildico and this shit-head is ripping her jacket and making her
cry. What am I going to do about it?

What indeed.

Nothing. Not a damn thing.

Except avoid him.

Paul was unsure how much time Ildico stayed in the
bathroom. He drank a whole glass of wine and was about to refill when the power
cut out.

“Just a minute, Ildico, I’ll get some light,” he
called more jovially than intended. It was the first thing he said to her since
she’d gone into the bathroom. She didn’t respond.

At least the candlelight was romantic. Perhaps she
would feel more comfortable hiding her tear-streaked makeup in semi-darkness.

He tapped on the bathroom door. “Ildico, I have a candle
here.” Then more assertively, “Ildico, don’t stay in the dark. Come out.”

There was a shuffling from inside and the sound of the
lock disengaging. She peeked around the door as it opened, defeated,
embarrassed and humiliated. “Come on,” Paul said softly whilst wrapping his arm
over her shoulders. “Come and have a drink, put it behind you.”

----- X -----

“What
is your story about?” Ildico asked as she looked at the story panels. She was
squeezing herself against the very edge of the sofa. Paul sat in the middle
with an uncomfortable gap between them. A single candle lit the room.

“The story isn’t formed, but at the minute it is about
a master thief who is locked in an underground prison like a dungeon but very
big, almost like the labyrinth of the Minotaur. Except, instead of the
minotaur, the church uses this prison to keep vampires they have captured and
the thief is dropped into the labyrinth to be killed. But because he’s a clever
guy, he escapes. Unfortunately, so do all the vampires.”

“Oh, that sounds so cool!” She made it sound like it
really was.

Paul laughed, “No, it’s complete shit. It’s not what
I’m interested in writing but it fits the brief. It’s never going to be a
bestseller. I may not use it as the first book. I’ll keep it for something
later in the series.”

“No, it is amazing. I think it will be a big success
and it will be a best selling and you will be famous.”

Paul smiled and sipped on the wine. “I doubt it. But
it’s my dream to write a bestselling book. What about you? What’s your big
dream?”

“My dream?” Ildico wondered. “I don’t know. I want to
go away from here. Before my dream is I am famous like a pop-star or a model
and travel in the world. I earn lots of money and travel to many places in the
world.”

“You want to be rich and famous?”

“Not famous. I think I just want to make money to look
after my family and then they can be proud of me. I want money to take care of
them.”

“I understand that.”

“But I never was a pop-star,” Ildico softly added.
“What does this mean?” She pointed to the panel under the painting of Jesus. In
big letters it said ‘anti-religion’.

“That is the thematic message of the book. I want when
people have read it to understand that religion, organised religion like
Christianity or Judaism is very bad and foolish.”

“But church is good,” Ildico said with an air of
authority. “Why do you want to turn people away from church?”

“Because it’s not true and it hurts people. There is
no God, no heaven or hell or any kind of afterlife.”

“So where do you think you go when you die?” Ildico
asked.

“You don’t go anywhere. At death, the human brain
switches off like a light switch and that’s the end of it. Some people find
this idea so terrifying that they cling to the desperate fairytale that their
thoughts, memories, knowledge and emotions somehow become a ghost that comes
out of their body, then travels to a cosmic courtroom where it is judged by the
creator of the entire universe who will decide where it should be stored for
eternity. They cling to this idea without any proof out of fear. It’s nonsense.
It’s religious and superstitious bullshit, created by lunatics and spread in
churches to gullible and pathetic fools. Churches are an abomination against
mankind.”

Ildico sipped her wine and noticeably looked
uncomfortable.

“I don’t think you should try and turn people away
from their church.”

“Religion is a really bad thing and it deserves to be
treated with the disrespect it has earned.”

“Do you really...” Ildico paused as though trying to
understand the question in her head. “You really don’t believe in God?”

“There is no God.”

“I don’t understand how you can think like this?”

“Two reasons. I’m intelligent and I’m independent. The
more intelligent you are the less likely you are to believe in God. But
intelligence isn’t everything, there are a handful of intelligent Christians
out there.” Paul suddenly snorted with derision thinking on that dichotomy.
“And there are no doubt a handful of stupid atheists, but by and large, the
more intelligent people are, the less religious they are. But the real kicker
is that independent people don’t need strong social connections. I’m very
independent, I don’t need many real friends to feel comfortable, so why the
hell would I need an imaginary one?”

“And where did the universe come from if not from
God?”

Paul groaned. “I could tell you. I could tell you how
that first energy coalesced into sub atomic particles then coalesced further
into hydrogen and helium. More importantly, I can explain how we know this. I
can explain how stars turn hydrogen into the ninety two elements that make
everything around us...” Then with a totally unexpected air of superiority Paul
said, “But there’s no point in trying to explain that to you!”

The word ‘you’ was spoken as though she was lower than
shit.

Ildico’s only retort was to reassert her argument.
“You shouldn’t try to turn people away from their church. Church is good.”

“Good for who?” Paul snapped. “Do you know what a
suicide bomber is?”

“Yes,” then darkly, “but they are Muslim. Most people
know it is wrong to kill.”

“Most Muslims know it is wrong to kill. But some
Muslims believe they go to heaven with seventy two virgins if they die whilst
killing Jews.”

“But that is stupid,” Ildico said.”

“Christians are just as stupid. Christians hurt people
because of their beliefs. There are Christian witch hunters running around in Nigeria dismembering children and burning people to death because they believe in
witchcraft and sorcery.”

“This is in Africa, not here.” Ildico said.

“Oh really? Well in Romania, here in Noua, people
murder schizophrenics or those suffering from rabies because people believe in
bad spirits, strigoi and devil forests.”

“Strigoi is true.”

“No, it’s not true. There is no such thing as a
vampire. You need to be stupid, Ildico. You need to be fucking brainwashed and
idiotic to believe someone is a vampire to such a degree that you actually
participate in murdering them.”

“Please, we talk about something different.”

“And do you know how you personally hurt people? You
hurt people Ildico because you know someone was murdered and buried in the
forest only a short walk from here. But because you believe this bullshit so
implicitly, you refuse to stand up and say it’s not true, and if everybody
refuses to talk about it then it will happen again. I mean... you even go so
far as to tell me I shouldn’t talk about it. You’re such a stupid cunt. We’re
talking about murder, do you fucking understand? People killing other people
because they believe in ghosts? Yet you refuse to talk about it which means it
will go on and on, killing and burying. Killing people who need hospital
treatment because you believe in a strigoi? It’s a fucking disgrace. You’re a
fucking disgrace.”