Vampire "Untitled" (Vampire "Untitled" Trilogy Book 1) (20 page)

Is this what depression is? Is this how it starts?
Being in a place of outstanding natural beauty, in a new country, on an
adventure and all you want is to be alone and cry?

What was he doing with his life? What was he doing
with his time? He hadn’t been here long. A week? It’s homesickness, that’s all
it is, at least that was what he was trying to convince himself. Missing that
handful of friends, missing the creature comforts. This was supposed to be a
writing retreat, a hidden space devoid of distractions like TV and social
engagements; in that regard this was the most brilliant place to come. But
there was a price he hadn’t factored; it was a prison of solitude and although
he’d wanted to create that, he hadn’t realised he might need time to adjust to
it.

He wiped his tears onto the sleeve of his jacket.
“You’re just homesick, that’s all,” he said. “You’re just homesick. You should
go back now, it’s cold up here.” But he didn’t want to go. He wanted to stay
here on the ledge staring down at the city. It was peaceful up here. He could
cry, and he could be alone.

----- X -----

The
bus grumbled to a halt back at Noua and the engine died. The doors swung open
and stayed open. The bus had been warmed by some kind of engineering miracle
that blew hot air around his ankles. It was so comfortable it had left him
feeling a little sleepy until this chilling blast of outside air hit him.

The sky was a dark blue and night was only minutes
away. The brightest stars were already twinkling and as Paul looked at them, he
realised he was almost under the constellation of Orion. He knew that the
Ancient Egyptians saw great significance in the three stars of Orion’s belt and
had built the grand pyramids directly beneath them. Seen from London, Orion
always appeared low in the sky, but here it was much higher and he could tell
by the different angle that he was halfway to Egypt. This would be a good place
for stargazing. High altitude, zero street lights. Shame it was so cold.

When Paul arrived at the block he swung the door open
and reached for the light switch. The lights were on already, there was a
matchstick jammed into the button holding the switch to keep the lights on.

“Hey...” A voice from the corner.

Paul felt his body tense as he spun. He knew... he
wished to Christ he didn’t!

“Englezoiule.”

That was the name, the nickname, ‘English’.

Nealla.

He was quick, fierce, grabbing Paul’s coat and pushing
him back to the letterboxes on the wall. This was it. There was a split second
where Paul saw it all in crystal clarity. Nealla had been ruminating on some
idea in his little head. Ildico. He was angry, pissed off, wanting to assert
himself. Nealla would prove himself to Ildico by beating the living fuck out of
Paul.

As Nealla smashed him back against the letterboxes
Paul’s appreciation of his foe changed. He didn’t feel fear. For a fleeting
moment, Nealla was no more bothersome than a wasp buzzing around his face at a
picnic. Nealla wanted Ildico. He couldn’t have her. Fuck Nealla.

Paul grabbed the lapels to Nealla’s leather jacket and
kicked back against the wall, he ducked to the side and swung Nealla in an arc,
using the momentum to swing him into the opposite wall. “LISTEN TO ME YOU
FUCKING ARROGANT CUNT, WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU...”

Bang!

Then he was falling sideways. A flash of light
accented the fist that smacked against his left temple. The fall lasted enough
time to see everything. The fluorescent strip-light of the ceiling spun into
view, he felt water on his hand and knew he’d landed in the perpetual puddle in
the entrance. Then he saw the sole of Nealla’s boot as it smashed down onto his
face.

Reality returned.

Paul screeched a yelp. The boot hit the left side of
his brow and sliced down his face almost taking his ear off. The boot was in
the air again, slamming down. Barely a millisecond to get elbows high to avoid
the second stomp. His arms shielded the kick but it was so well placed it
cracked his head back into the puddle and bounced it off the concrete floor.

Paul screamed and screamed. It was involuntary but in
the confines of the entranceway it echoed all the way to the top of the stairs
and all the way back down.

Nealla dropped to straddle him, knees on either side,
throwing punches like a pro boxer. All Paul could do was defend and scream.
Scream. Scream. Keep screaming. It was all he could do. He had to hope beyond
hope that someone would come.

Then Nealla stopped the punches and stood, still
straddling him. His hand went in his pocket. The razor came out.

Oh Fuck.

Paul screamed in panic so shrill and high that the
sound was inaudible. He was going to die here, he was going to be cut and
murdered and he was screaming and no sound was coming out. Nealla unfolded the
razor. Paul raised his leg and jammed his foot hard into Nealla’s balls,
unbalancing him. Paul was on his back with one leg straight in the air and had
lifted Nealla up on his foot. Nealla wobbled like a child trying to get on a
bicycle that was too tall for him. He tried to slip off to one side but was too
unsteady. At the same time one of the inaudible screams caught in Paul’s vocal
chords and let out the most deafening scream Paul could ever imagine himself
making.

A door on the first floor above opened and an old lady
looked over the balcony. She shouted something down. Both Paul and Nealla
looked up at her together and the action suddenly paused at the intrusion. Then
the door to the building opened. There was another woman, middle aged, carrying
a shopping bag. Again both Paul and Nealla looked at her. Nealla quickly
stuffed the knife in his pocket and stepped aside.

Words were yelled in Romanian. Nealla was shouting
about something. This woman and the old lady upstairs were yelling back,
telling him off, admonishing him.

Nealla glared at Paul with the most sickening look of
hatred and crashed through the doors to make his exit.

Paul tried to roll over but he was in too much pain or
in some state of capitulation that made it feel impossible. He wanted to lay
here in the puddle and wait for an ambulance but the woman with the shopping
bag was pulling at him, trying to make him stand.

He rolled onto his side and propped himself on an
elbow before sitting. He was sat in the water. He saw blood on the concrete. As
he looked down more blood hit the puddle, it must have dropped from his face.
More blood. He touched his hand to his mouth and it came back slick and
crimson. The woman with the bag was pulling him, chattering in Romanian,
concerned, saying things that he didn’t understand.

“I’m sorry, I don’t speak Romanian.” His words sounded
fat, slurred. “Nu Romanesta. No speak Romanesta.” He tried to spit and saw
thick slimy blood and saliva drool onto his coat. There was no strength to
spit. With effort he slid up the wall to get to his feet. There was blood all
over the floor. His blood. The razor... Paul started checking himself for a cut
but couldn’t even tell where to look. His jeans were soaked, his hair was wet,
the back of his head felt the worst from being stamped into the concrete and it
felt as though it was bleeding.

The woman cried out in a high pitch. She fell against
him, pinning him to the wall.

Nealla.

Back for round two.

He’d sprung back through the doors and tried to swing
a punch but by misfortune the woman had become sandwiched between them. Nealla
aimed one well placed blow across her shoulder and it connected smartly on
Paul’s nose. It was a perfect and clean punch but the power and ferocity wasn’t
there to do any injury worse than he was already dealing with. It was enough
for Nealla. Paul could read it in his face. For him it was like having the last
word in an argument. He’d won, he was satisfied.

Paul barely felt the punch, but physically his head
jolted back with the theatre of a Hollywood stuntman who fakes being smacked in
the chops.

Nealla was back out the door. Paul saw him briefly as
it swung closed, walking down the steps into the street, straightening his
clothes, moving with a swagger. It took Paul a few more seconds to realise that
the woman was talking to him, looking him straight in the eyes. A few sentences
passed before he realised she was saying the words ‘adresa’ and ‘acasa’.

Address. She was asking his address.

“Here,” Paul said with the same thickness of slurred
words. “Address,” he pointed up the stairs.

The woman took his elbow and started moving him that
way. He held the banister and made it up each stair one at a time, slowly. Some
of it he did in darkness as he couldn’t move as fast as the timed light switch
allowed. At one point the woman passed him to activate the light switch ahead
and he saw there was blood on the back of her coat, probably from when they
were sandwiched together. She talked incessantly all the way up. No doubt this
was incredibly traumatic for her too.

When they made it to the top floor she stood and
waited as Paul unlocked the apartment door. He was slurring his words, trying
to tell her that this was indeed his apartment, but she didn’t seem satisfied
until he’d actually opened the door with the key.

He slipped inside and tried his best to tell her thank
you. He wanted to thank her a thousand times, but all that he slurred was
‘multsumesc’ a few times. Without a proper goodbye, she was heading away. She
must live in the building, Paul thought; find her later, say thank you. Right
now, just get inside, lock the door and never ever come back out.

----- X -----

The
bathroom sink was splattered with blood. He’d spat, or rather drooled a few
times without bothering to run the tap and the white porcelain had thick, slimy
and bloody spittle flashed across it. He didn’t want to turn on the tap and
wash away the blood. There was something theatrical about it, something
photographic that he wanted to look at. It was the result of an exchange and a
visible part of the drama that could be seen and examined after the event.

The injuries seemed less severe than anticipated. The
blood was coming from his bottom lip which poured from cuts made against his
teeth. The majority of the pain he felt came from his left ear; Nealla’s boot
had grazed his face but scraped over his ear like a knife stripping wallpaper.
It hurt like hell and was bright red. Paul soaked a cloth in cool water to
press against it.

That was it. His lip was fat, there was a sore bump on
the back of his head and an even sorer ear. Of course, tomorrow he would have a
few bruises and he could already feel a black-eye ripening, but the ferocity of
the drama wasn’t conveyed in the wounds.

He had no plan to call the police. That felt unusual.
If this had been back in London he would have called the police immediately,
reported the crime, given the details; but he felt no urge to call them. As he
thought on it, he tried to reason with himself that he was scared of the police
because he couldn’t speak the language, but that wasn’t the truth. He didn’t
want to call the police because it didn’t feel like the right thing to do.

Feeling... That was the difference. He was feeling
this event.

Normally, Paul operated on logic, doing things after
thinking about them, making decisions with the head rather than the heart.
Calling the police was logically a good idea; but in this strangely opposing
moment it didn’t ‘feel’ right to call. It didn’t ‘feel’ right to report Nealla.
He was operating in a mode of ‘I feel’ rather than ‘I think’.

Paul walked to the living room to collect the camera
and photographed the bloody washbasin. He took pictures of his face in the
mirror from several angles.

Why don’t you want to report him? He wondered to
himself. Because then playtime would be over, his subconscious replied.

“We wouldn’t want that, would we?” Paul said, barely
even aware of what he was thinking. “We can’t let this be the end of things.”

Moving back to the lounge, Paul grabbed a bottle of
wine and a glass, poured one, downed it, poured a second and downed that too.
His lips felt too fat and they were tender when he ran his tongue over them. He
paced the room with his wine and picked up the cruciform from the balcony to re-examine.
What would you do, Jesus?

He lit candles and guzzled down a third glass of wine.
As he was drinking it he felt the mild but intended effect of sudden alcohol
overload and sat in the chair to let it overtake him.

Fuck Nealla. A day of reckoning would come.

He picked up the digital camera and flicked through
the images to see the blood in the sink. The images of his bruised and swollen
face made him look completely different. It wasn’t swelling or the injuries, it
was the expression that was odd. The corners of his mouth were turned up, there
was a glint in his eyes and it made him look bad-ass. He’d taken a beating but
was smiling through, showing no more emotion than mild amusement. Nealla had
unleashed his most vicious fury and Paul was grinning.

Fuck Nealla.

The photograph of the sink splashed with blood was
dramatic. Nice. The aftermath of a violent encounter. Nealla’s total fury
looked nothing more than a pathetic weakness. Nealla, the idiot boy who rages
because he has no self control or self discipline. He was laughable.