Vampire "Untitled" (Vampire "Untitled" Trilogy Book 1) (7 page)

In the branches above the hollow, hung hundreds of
wooden crucifixes. Some were simple wooden crosses, some were ornate Eastern
Orthodox, painted with vibrant golden hues. They were everywhere. Hundreds,
perhaps even a thousand. All suspended above a white cross that seemed to be
marking a grave.

Paul took a photograph of the cruciform hanging over
the entrance, then stepped inside the hollow. It was darker here, with thicker
tree limbs and all year round fauna to border the hollow. It was amazing. More
importantly, Paul thought, this had to be deliberate. Someone had constructed
this place with care and imbued it with Christianity. The latticework of tree
branches had been cultivated over many years, but the hanging crucifixes ranged
from the very old, to newer freshly painted ornaments. This site was old, but
it was maintained. He turned on the camera flash and began clicking away.

Although powerfully unique, there was little else to
see. The large white wooden cross had no markings and was simply planted into
the earth. “This has to be a grave,” Paul said to himself. Then he realised he
was standing on it and moved to the side. “But who gets buried like this?” He
examined a low hanging crucifix that was so new it had a price label stuck on
the back of it. “And who maintains this place?”

Any negative feelings he’d felt from earlier were now
subdued, it was almost worth living with a bit of misery when surprises like
this were here to spark his imagination. This mystery, this odd Christian
shrine hidden in the forest was golden. It was inspirational.

----- X -----

The
legal pad was marked “Untitled Vampire Story.”

Paul had created a writing studio in the living room.
From a yellow legal pad he had fixed blank pages to the wall to make eight
boxes he could write on. Normally he would use poster-sized flip-chart paper,
but without such large stationery he stuck three pages of the legal pad
together to make each large panel. He had eight of these panels covering the
largest wall in two rows of four. They were labelled for a classic eight-point
arc of storytelling; Stasis, Trigger, Quest, Discovery, Critical Choice,
Climax, Reversal and Conclusion. He placed another panel under the painting of
Christ and labelled it Topic and Thematic Message. Without even thinking he
wrote in the space for thematic message “Anti-Religion.” This wasn’t quite the
right thing but he wanted it written down. The topic was supposed to be what
the story explored and he was already thinking about religion to go with his
vampires; the thematic message was what he wanted the reader to come away
thinking, so it could be that religion is bad or a waste of time, but for no
particular reason that he could discern he felt compelled to write
Anti-Religion under the painting of Jesus. Quite an affront to the peace and
tranquillity of the image. A deliberate poke in the eye to the son of God.

In the middle of the room, facing his eight boxes he
moved the uncomfortable armchair and repositioned the nested tables ahead of
it. His laptop sat with pride of place ahead of the chair and a fresh legal pad
was to his right along with the Shadowbeast book.

“Perfect,” he said with a smile. He collected a bottle
of red wine from the kitchen and started up a collection of Mozart on the
laptop. When it came to writing, he could only listen to instrumental music; if
he listened to songs with words he would often read back his work and find
occasional song lyrics typed amongst the sentences. There was a wide selection
on the laptop of classical and Jazz, but mostly he had film scores. He’d been
collecting soundtracks for years and had a huge library of music from which he
could always set the mood for what he wanted to write. With the music playing and
a glass of wine in his hand, he paced the room speaking out loud.

The ideas poured forth from everything he had seen.
The taxi driver and bus passengers crossing themselves, the painting of Christ,
the Christian grave in the forest. The landscape of his story painted itself
with ease. A combination of earthy forest life and religious observation.
Religion could come in easily, whether it was perverted priests or Monks who
were assassins of God, killing vampires... “The Assassins of God,” Paul said
aloud as he wrote it. “Now that’s a fucking book title.”

He thought about the basement to the building, the
dark scary place that looked like a prison and imagined a hero to the story
trapped in such a place, a fearsome sewer-like prison he must escape from before
being killed by a vampire that was also trapped in there. “Piece of cake.”
Every time he had a good idea he found a place to write it on one of the eight
panels on the wall. Whether the story idea was a choice that had to be made, or
a solution to a problem or an action scene, there was always a place on the
panels for his random scrawling. Eventually they would form a collage that
would coalesce into a fully rendered structure. Right now he was digging the
clay from the earth rather than sculpting.

The problem came when he tried to imagine a vampire.

He couldn’t.

“Vampires... are...” he thought on it for a second and
found no word. “Dracula, Nosferatu, Blade, Lost Boys, Near Dark, Salem’s Lot, Blood Makes Noise... Count from Sesame Street...” He went silent for a
minute, then said, “These are so done-to-death. They’re boring.”

He sat in the chair and sipped from the glass of wine.
“Let’s imagine.”

In his mind’s eye something special happened. As he
looked at the wall of the apartment he felt as though he was moving, as though
he were the passenger of a car that was driving, the car being the apartment
itself. He felt as the apartment arrived at its destination and watched as the
wall fell away to show the forest.

In the projected image of his imagination the entire
wall had become a cinema screen, a window into another place that was totally
under his control and direction.

“OK. Let’s see this place at night.” The sun slipped
over the horizon leaving an orange-red sky with long dark shadows. “And let’s
have a classic vampire.”

Into the scene stepped a man wearing the traditional
costume-shop vampire cape with a collar. His hair was slicked back with a
widow’s-peak at the front, his nose was sharp and severe and when he opened his
mouth he had fangs; he looked like a cut-price Bella Lugosi.

“You... you’re bullshit. Nobody will ever be
frightened of you.”

The imaginary vampire paraded up to the front of the
screen and seemed to step through, walking into the apartment and bringing the
forest with him. “But you know what could be interesting,” Paul said to the
vampire. “If whilst I’m watching you, I’m too engrossed to notice these guys
creeping up behind me.”

In Paul’s imagination he saw twisted beings crawling
on all fours through the forest. They were human in form with long thin limbs
and moved more like spiders than people. “Oh yeah, spider vampires, we haven’t
seen those before.”

He took a drink of the wine and suddenly laughed,
turning off the imagination. He was back in the apartment staring at eight
story panels on the wall. “Spider Vampires,” he said again with a laugh. “Do me
a fucking favour.”

Paul plugged away at the ideas, writing lots of notes
with lots of imagination, but nothing yet jumped out at him, nothing dazzled
with creative sparkle.

Then came the buzz, a rattling buzzing noise that was
unkind to the ears.

He didn’t know he had a doorbell and even after he’d
heard it, he wasn’t even sure it could be called that; more like an end-of-life
rattling than a bell. He had some trepidation in moving to the door; it could
be Nealla and Big Man come to confront him. Paranoia. There was no reason to
think that but it was the way he was thinking. Luckily, the door had a spy hole
and once glanced through, his heart skipped a beat.

“Hi,” Ildico said with a wide beaming grin. She was
wearing lipstick and makeup and had obviously made an effort to present herself
as best she could.

“Hi, hello...” There was an awkward pause as he waited
for her to explain why she was here. “Sorry, would you like to come in?”

“Thank you.” She came in and slipped her coat off to
reveal herself in a tight fitting silky top that looked more like underwear.
She was so thin Paul realised he could almost touch fingers if he were to wrap
his hands around her waist.

“I was thinking about you,” she said, “and I have
something I wanted to let you know.”

“OK,” Paul said. She had a faint scent of perfume
about her. Tight jeans, a figure hugging top, makeup... Oh God, she was
gorgeous.

“Do you want to know about vampires?” she asked. “Real
vampires?”

“Real vampires. I don’t think there are any real
vampires, even in Romania.”

“Oh there are. If you like, I can take you to meet a
friend of my Grandfather who said he is happy to talk with you.”

“Why?” Paul asked. “Does he know about vampires?”

“Yes,” Ildico replied. “In fact he once hunted and
killed a vampire and he has photographs of it he wants to show you.”

----- X -----

Paul
had never seen red wine mixed with cola before and the idea sounded resistible.
His host asked to be called John but Paul had an inkling this was an easy
English version of a longer or more difficult to pronounce Romanian name. The
great thing was, he spoke very good English.

“Do you know Hull, in England, Hull?” The way he said
it sounded like ‘Hool’.

“I know it, but I’ve never been,” Paul replied as he
sipped the coke-wine.

“I was living in Hull from 1978 to 1980. I was the
chief sales representative for Romania Tractorul... Tractors.”

“That must have been quite an experience, to live
outside...” Paul picked his words carefully, “the former communist times, I
suppose not many Romanians were able to live in other countries.”

“True,” John replied. “But Hull in 1978...” he shook
his head to signify his displeasure.

John had an easy way about him. Silver haired, rotund
but he looked strong rather than fat. He was in his sixties and had the skin of
a man who had worked outdoors all his life. Paul imagined that he would have
been some strapping fine man in his day. John poured a mixture of coke and wine
for Ildico. She sat beside him at the table of a kitchen that was small and
cosy like his own, but much darker and underlit. The majority of the light came
from a small reading lamp with a soft pastel shade; it illuminated them and the
tabletop but little else. It would be perfect for a séance and so set the stage
for a conversation on vampires perfectly.

John joined them bringing an old tin box. “This box
came from Hull.”

Paul looked; indeed it did. It had contained biscuits
at one point, a souvenir for a rugby team called Hull Kingston Rovers. The tin
celebrated the winning of a major competition in 1980 and featured a black and
white photograph of two players passing the ball. It was a terrific action
shot. Not the sort of thing one associates with biscuits.

“Rugby on the outside,” John said showing the tin,
“but inside,” he popped open the lid, “vampires.”

John carefully lifted out a collection of scrap
newspaper clippings and a few old photographs.

“Ildico tells me you are writing about vampires. I
want to ask, are you writing vampire like Hollywood, that bite on neck and fly,
or are you writing about real vampires.” There was an emphasis on the word
real.

“I’m not sure. I mean, I have a set brief from the
publisher but that concerns the commercial side of the project; I need to write
something that sells. But I suppose vampires have come in so many forms that
they can be anything nowadays.” Then as an afterthought, “That’s the problem
with them. We’ve seen so many different types in so many ways that they’re
boring. We’ve grown too familiar.”

“I don’t think you have seen this type,” John said
sliding across a very old black and white photograph of what looked like
farmhands. They posed in a line with their hands across each others shoulders.
“This is me.” He pointed to a teenaged boy on the end. “But I will tell you
about this man.” He pointed to a short man in the middle. “His name is
Dragoste. And he became a vampire.”

----- X -----

“The
word vampire, is not right,” John began. “Here we call it the strigoi. This
strigoi is... he is a troubled soul. The soul of a man that rises from the
grave after he dies. And this troubled soul, the strigoi, can sometimes come
into other people to make them do things.”

“Like a possession?” Paul asked as he opened a pocket
notepad to take notes. He gestured to John as though asking if it was OK to
take notes. John gave a nonchalant nod of approval and continued.

“Like a possession, yes but is more complicated than
this. More the strigoi makes a man changed; he is still the man, but now
changed to be very, how can I say... like his soul is dark. He is not
controlled by a demon, rather the strigoi changes his soul.”

Paul scribbled the information quickly knowing he was
going to have to fight his urge to create the story here and now. He knew he should
take all the information, digest it, then glean the more interesting parts; but
as always, his imagination was far too enthusiastic and wanted to create
stories with every new detail.