 
Short Stories By Joe

Copyright 2015 Joseph Barone

Published by Joseph Barone at Smashwords

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Table of Contents

Bugs

The Colored Ceiling

The Life Penalty

The Traveling Genie

Lucy the Last Vampire

"gray"

Vespers of the Moon

The BlackJack Dealer

The Ultimate Vampire

Fred's Café`

Bugs

"Bugs and death. Bugs and anything really. They just were always around for important events and occasions. They were there for my birthdays, they were there for other people's birthdays, they were there on the last day of school and the first day of winter break. Then one day they just stopped coming. All of a sudden."

"And you think it's because of the first time your parents sent you to a psychiatrist? Did the psychiatrist help?"

"I don't know. I don't think so."

"Why is that, Linda?"

"Because I refused meds, always. I never took meds ever. The psychiatrist thought I was a schizophrenic. He tried to convince me that if I didn't take prescription medication that I'd just get worse and eventually there would be no treatment. I'd fall apart and my brain would turn to mush. But that hasn't happened."

A pause.

"I see."

"I'm a very high functioning person, I'm 16 years old, a straight A student, and I have full scholarships for college. I don't fit the profile. I'm very organized unlike schizophrenics are. It's just that I see the bugs again. That's all, that's the only thing wrong with me. Maybe 'wrong' is a strong word. That's the only thing 'up' with me."

A pause. Some scratching sounds are heard.

"I see."

"I hate this. What are you even writing down?"

"Just taking notes for myself. Writing notes helps me guide my thoughts. I give myself some gentle reminders of our sessions for later."

"I thought that's what the voice recorder was for. You seem disinterested when you write in that notepad. It makes you appear pretty disconnected with what I'm saying."

A pause. A nose scratch.

"Okay Linda, if you feel that way I'll put away the pad, alright? This is your time after all and anything I can do to make your time more accommodating, just let me know."

"Just remember that it is my time, is all I'm saying. You know, to my ears, your tone sounds a little self-aggrandizing even while giving in to my very reasonable request. I'm just asking that you look at me when I talk, I don't believe that's too much to ask. I think you're already going into this session with the idea that I'm crazy and not with an open mind."

"Linda, I don't think you're crazy, okay? No one does."

"My parents do. Everyone who knows about the bugs does. I stopped telling my close friends. I told some of them in confidence once. They were all really supportive to my face but then, for one reason or another they magically can't hang out any more. So screw them, screw everybody."

A pause.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. It's just that people are fake, even when they don't mean to be. Even when they don't want to be. I'm sure they'd all like to be the kind of people who are actually supportive. But everyone thinks they're better than they really are. The truth is that most don't have the time or desire. Not unless you're a shrink being paid to listen. It's sickening."

"I can understand that."

"I'm sure you can. Doctors complain about patients all the time and I'm sure you do to your friends or husband or whatever on weekends when you're not doctoring. You listen to people, you know what they're like. You've probably seen and heard so much hypocrisy from that chair that it's a wonder your head is still on. I'm sure you know exactly what I mean."

"You sound upset. Angry. So, it's a question that I legally have to ask: Does being that upset make you want to strike out, hurt yourself or others?"

"You sound like you ask a lot of questions. Does that make you a voyeur? Does it make you a peeping Tom? Does listening to other people's secrets make you want to get a camera and zoom into homes to catch people in various stages of undress? I'm just stating things as they really are. And the way things are upsets me. I'm isolated. Because these things I see and hear that no one else does, they scare me. It's like I'm alone with an invisible monster."

"We can all relate to feeling utterly alone. Maybe not in the same way, but alone is alone, right? Can you tell me any more about the bugs? When do you see them, what do they do? What are they like?"

"I don't feel like they're all bad. They're not all evil. Some are good, some are benign. Sometimes they warn me, sometimes they're just in the background, setting the mood. They're like a soundtrack or a theatrical backdrop. In fact, some of the fireflies change colors to match my life. When exciting things are happening the firefly lights turn brighter and the...sounds they make get more high-pitched."

"The buzzing?"

"Yes, all the bugs...do that. Even the tarantulas. Doctor Solvay..."

"Melanie."

"Okay, Melanie, can you not say that word? It bothers me."

"I'm sorry Linda, which word? Can you spell it?"

"No, if I spell it, I have to make that sound. I hate that sound."

"Okay- so you mean you don't like the word B-U-blank-blank."

"Yes. I hate the last letter in the alphabet. It hurts my head to hear it and even more to say it. I've been that way since childhood."

"But I heard you say 'doctors' just a few seconds ago. That word has that sound in it."

"Yeah but it's not spelled with that letter. It makes a differenc. Just please don't say that word or anything with that letter in it."

"Okay Linda, I think I can do that. Sure, that's fine. So, what kinds of insects do you see?"

"Oh, it can be anything. It can be flies- flies are bad. They're probably the worst. They never come around for good reasons. They come around when death happens, or when death is approaching, or just as a warning of possible death. Lots of flies once swarmed all over the house, all over everything. They were coming from outside, so I followed them and there down the street was a massive car crash. No one survived except a baby. But it was covered in flies. It wound up surviving but all the time that we were waiting for an ambulance, the poor thing was being swarmed. It was lucky.

"I see spiders, grasshoppers, butterflies, lightning bugs, ladybugs, roaches, beetles. They all come for different reasons. Once I discovered all the reasons, I learned how to read their approach. I got less scared because I knew what they all meant."

"They became less frightening once you understood their purpose."

"Yes."

"Mhm."

"But now I know what you probably think, that it's nuts and by extension so am I. You think they're a reaction to events in my life. But I'm telling you, they always showed up BEFORE the thing they were supposed to represent. So to me, I wasn't like, making them up in response to anything. How could I possibly see flies before a death and not associate the two? Wouldn't anyone? The insects are harbingers, messengers, and they come with knowledge that I can't interpret until after they've arrived."

"Can you give me an example?"

"I just did, with the flies. They came before I knew that there was an accident."

"Okay, what about the beetles? The roaches? The spiders? What did those things mean?"

"Different things. The beetles were the best. Them or the fireflies or the ladybugs. They arrived before laughter, before happiness, before good news. Lightning bugs covered the house across the street once and the lamp post in front of it was completely covered in them. There were more and more fireflies piling onto and into that house until the baby was born.

"Then beetles began running amok there afterwards. I guess the lightning bugs represent anticipatory happiness and the beetles represent the realization of happiness. They were really good. Not like the roaches. The roaches were bad, but not as bad as the flies. Maybe bad in a different way. The roaches crawled all around human filth. Bad people were enveloped in roaches. Mean people."

"Mean people like who?"

"It could be anybody, even people who you'd never figure. A minister, a cop, a nice old lady who used to give me candy. The minister stole money from his congregation, the cop was a hobby rapist and the old lady abused her grandchildren."

"How did you find out about those things? Did the bugs TELL you those things?"

"Now that's stupid. How can bugs talk? They're just regular bugs, not like cartoon fairy bugs."

"So how do you know those things?"

"Because eventually all those people got caught. The cop and the minister went to jail at different times. And I was wondering for the longest time why the lady always had roaches and then, she died and her grand-kids told me. She used to starve them when they got bad grades. She was the legal guardian but she did an awful job of guarding them."

"So tell me, how did the bugs just simply disappear? It seems like you had been getting used to them. How did we get from there to here?"

A pause.

"Well, maybe I was wrong before- I told you that I didn't think the psychiatrist made them go away. And I still sort of think that. They didn't go away directly because of therapy. I didn't take pills. But my old therapist did somehow convince me that I was making them up. No matter what I told her, she explained them away as a defense mechanism or residual imaginary friends that served some kind of psychodynamic...purpose. She used some jargon. They were there because I needed them. She told me that having them made me feel special and they were with me because I needed to feel special. She convinced me that my parents weren't treating me good enough, or something."

"How did that make you feel?"

"Well, it made me mad. It made me really mad. My parents were great to me, always. And I knew in my heart that the bugs came before I could have any knowledge of what they were supposed to represent. Sometimes they'd be around for days and I wouldn't know why. Then something would happen and I'd know."

"Okay, now let me offer something, just a...a possible explanation. I'm not saying they're not real but...what if...you saw these bugs, didn't know why and...eventually something bad, sad or happy would happen and it would seem as if they predicted it? If you see a chicken pecking on the floor and then it starts raining, well, chickens are always pecking on the floor- it stands to reason that at some point, one chicken would be pecking right before a storm. It doesn't mean that if a chicken pecks, that it's going to rain."

"Yes, that's one reason I stopped believing they were real. My old shrink gave me a similar explanation. It got me mad but I thought it over and over and I think deep down I wanted to believe they were real, but I also...I also really had faith in her authority to know better. Plus she always had spiders and beetles around her. Spiders were for wisdom, intelligence. I eventually told her I agreed with her assessment. She beat me. So I said, fine, the bugs were figments. How do I make them go away?"

"Now, you just said that you wanted them to be real. Let's explore that. Why did you want them to be real?"

A pause.

"Well, it's complicated. If they're real, that means that the world...makes sense. I dunno. Like if ghosts are real, then that means there's an afterlife. If I saw ghosts, I'd be happy. It'd make sense. I wouldn't have to worry. These insects are like...ghosts to me. If that makes any sense at all."

"I can see that. There's some comfort in peering into...into the veil of reality, right? Looking back behind the curtain? It can help us cope, it can give us strength. But we need to be strong without it. Because if we're fooled by what we think we see, right? Are you following? Hello? If we're fooled, then it will hurt us more to know that we've been fooled. So we believe even harder, against all kinds of contrary evidence. If our faith is such that we crumble if we're wrong, then that faith is just like a bad drug. Once the high is over, we're depleted. We're destroyed."

"Right. Sorry, I was just checking a text. But I was listening. So I did everything short of taking meds. I did hypnosis once a week and regular talk therapy twice a week. The bugs didn't go away at first. I was getting frightened because it meant I had a disease, I was sick. My mind wasn't going to get any better without medication. My parents spoke to me repeatedly about getting a prescription for anti-psychotics. I was getting desperate. But I was worried about growing up with problems. They say caffeine stunts your growth. Well, what does lithium do?

"My mother and father took me to the psychiatrist on a Tuesday, I remember. I had relented in a brief moment of weakness. I said I would take the pills. Fine. But as if I was given a sign from above, there was an emergency that day and the doctor wasn't seeing any patients. Another patient was suicidal or something so my therapist had to go. It was that day, without getting a prescription, that the bugs stopped coming. I guess just making the decision to accept the pills was enough. They got the message that they weren't wanted."

"That's interesting that you put it that way, as them being unwanted. Unneeded. So, at some point, you needed them to help cope with something. Could be a traumatic event or could just be a generalized kind of need. Then you didn't. You became strong enough to push through without them. And now...tell me about how they returned?"

"Well there were a lot of times I thought they returned, but what I saw wound up being actual insects. I saw a bee in the house, but so did my mom and she guided it out the door. Knowing my sensitivity, she and my dad never killed a bug that they saw. Well, except the ones I told them were bad. Always kill a cockroach or a fly. If you can catch them."

"So, my question. When did you start seeing them again?"

"It was years, honestly. I thought it was over. I was sane again, I regained my mind, and I was in control. Everything went back to normal. After a long time, I allowed myself to go to family funerals without worrying about invisible creatures. It was okay. Flies wouldn't be there. So I went to a great-aunt's wake and lo and behold, a huge moving, black B-U-blank-blank-I-N-G mass, covering the coffin, and a few of them hovering around my great-uncle too. He was next. I ran out of the place immediately. I didn't tell anyone. I had my dad take me home, and I cried."

"Mm okay. Okay. I'm looking at the clock here and it seems we have just a few minutes left. What's wrong, Linda? Linda?"

"When you said 'we' have just a few minutes left I felt a shudder. Something's happening. Do you see that, Dr. Solvay? No? Oh no."

"What?"

"They're all over you. I see a swarm around your chest. It's flies!"

"You see them now, on me?"

"You have to call 911 right now- you're about to have a heart attack. They're resting on your breastbone!"

A pause. Some shuffling of papers into a folder.

"Well, this would make an interesting milestone for you. If I don't have a heart attack, you'll make a breakthrough concerning these hallucinations."

"If you do have a heart attack, so will you."

The Colored Ceiling

This dusty, smoky den reeks of filth and debauchery. Maybe it's my imagination, but I pride myself on my prejudices often being correct. As a New York City police detective, it's a keen sense of awareness that matters most, if anything matters at all anymore. It surprises me how little the former institutions make a difference. I draw a paycheck for playing house, not cleaning up the mess of humanity in this town.

We don't rule the streets any longer, they rule us. And the folks, the citizens, the roaches that form the nest that is the underbelly of the city- they've lost their fear, along with their respect out of fear, for the badge. It feels like the Wild West sometimes. Anyone hard up on cash or foolish enough to want to, could form a lawful posse. The West was eventually tamed. And, it eventually devolved back into chaos, along with the rest of the world.

It's dark in this waiting room, but in the back, where my host is, there's an odd symphony of sounds and lights. The criminals, they humor us these days. They know they must play nice, just as we know it won't matter whether they do or not.

But I go with the pioneers before me, the Waiters of history. Those who waited for their rewards. The women, the minorities, the gays, all had to wait for their recognition. They got it eventually. Then they lost it again. The rule of law and the good people of the world must wait again for their reintroduction to the mainstream. To the law protecting them. But until then, we few good people play reindeer games with the dank, sludgy majority-criminals who run the world. We indulge the scum, the bottom feeders, those who inherited the earth instead of us.

The place gives the impression of a strip club as you walk in the door, but a few more steps in, you realize that's not all that's happening. Oh, there's that too. Disease-ridden women and men dance on poles in the front, un-heedful of anything, looking drugged or lobotomized or both. The entire place is full of back rooms. Some customers indeed indulge only the body. There are whores to fulfill your every desire, your every request. Behest is more correct to say. The customer is always right in this place. If sex and booze is all you want, then consider your wishes granted. But this is a primitive desire, experienced by ancient men. No, the roaches have also evolved.

My host walks back in with a faux professional air of hospitality. He had an aloofness which could easily be the result of drug overuse from many years. I observed a nervous twitch in his left eye, a tic that would cause his muscles to contract there every three minutes or so. Maybe he was fiending for a fix, and rued the fact his shift wasn't yet over.

He wore black leather pants and tee, had earrings everywhere but his ears, wore dark makeup and had black dyed hair. I wore jeans. That's a detective get-up now. I remember when it was different. I remember a lot of things.

He motioned me over to the bar. "Sorry, Detective, it's busy for a Monday morning. I was just showing a customer over to the back."

He began to wipe down the counter in a manner reminiscent of when people worked hard or gave a damn. His stock rose with me a bit. About two cents. If you've been keeping up with inflation these days, you know just how little that is.

Right behind the counter there were cheaply made spirits, and some were actual moonshine. There was strong absinthe a little higher, and on the highest shelves were multicolored, smaller bottles. Those most expensive libations were called "primers". They were pure emotions, captured in liquid form contained in a tiny vessel to be injected into a customer's veins. Liquid emotions. Ready to use. And philosophers used to say that the soul was made of gas. Bah. Wrong phase.

"So how can I help you, Detective?"

"I'll take some of that peach beer on the bottom there. I'd like to ask you a few questions about your establishment, Mister Jonas."

He finished wiping the table and was now washing a beer mug. "Eliot. Call me Eliot. I don't own this place, Detective."

"Call me Ray. The main owner, a Craig Walcott, told my department we should talk to you. He says everyone that works at The Colored Ceiling has an ownership stake. That makes it partly yours."

Eliot stifled a small selfish smile. My, but this man was simple. "I wasn't aware of that arrangement," he practically giggled as he handed me my moldy beer. The true owners likely put his name on it as a front to cover their rears.

"Why's it called The Colored Ceiling anyway, Eliot?"

I could see why Craig wanted this guy to answer my questions. He was very animated and gave off a surprisingly confident air, like a salesman. He was someone who believed in his product and was excited by it. And wanted to chew your ear off about it, because you should be just as excited.

"We have the best primer procurement of any den around. It might look a little dingy, but this place stays on top of technical innovations in this space. In some instances we fund the research directly."

I offered a small head shake explaining that I don't follow. "So..."

"So we have the best stuff. The best primers, the best programming, the best storyboarding. Ceilings are high, right? We will get you as high as you can get. As far as the ceiling being colored, that depends on the mood you're in. Colors are emotions. What experience are you looking for? We have all kinds. Blue, red, white, green, purple, pink, black, orange. You know, nothing rhymes with orange. Excuse me."

Eliot got up to tend to what I assume was the 1:35pm appointment. An Asian couple, wearing...plastic? Purple plastic get-up, with purple and blond hair near the entrance. They laughed at Eliot's jokes and he motioned them to the back, where the three of them got swallowed up by the eerie noises and flashing lights. It gave me a chance to jot down some notes.

Without looking up, I sensed that he was back. "Explain, Eliot. About how these people get high? What's a primer, what gets programmed, what does storyboarding mean?"

He blurted out a sigh of disbelief. "This isn't anything new, bro. Dens have been around at least what- three, four years?"

You have to practice mind over matter with dumb animals. One thing a stupid dog understands is either the bark or the bite of a bigger dog. "I'm not your bro, Mr. Jonas. You may have been around that long, but surprise surprise, there has never been an official New York City investigation into what goes on here, and although tolerated, there is no official sanction of dens."

In case he thought I was as stupid as he was, I added, "I know what goes on in here, but humor me for the sake of the investigation and keeping everything on record. I suggest you make nice with me for both our sakes, Mr. Jonas."

He calmly but coolly proceeded. His words flowed naturally. That made it easier to take notes, like in a bizarre college lecture. "The Colored Ceiling, and places like it, seek to sell an experience. A legitimate, life altering and mind blowing experience. Except we just do it better than the competition. We provide the realest possible experiences in a controlled, artificial environment. Clients are primed with the emotions that they want to feel. They tell us the fantasy or the experience they want to live out. We prepare a comprehensive computer program that they get locked into, and in order to do that we have to create a storyboard that's approved by the client. Our programmers code the computer program to our exact specifications." He scratched his cheek in that unintentionally nervous way and tic'ed once or twice.

"Then when the clients come in, they're brought into the rooms, take the primer, and get hooked up to the virtual program to live out the experience with the full range of emotions they themselves wanted to feel. Did you ever have a hero fantasy but were too shy to actually ever do anything heroic? Well, as primers, we can give you a mixture of altruism, a sense of being called to action, pride, humility- everything that you tell us that you want to feel, and an accompanying virtual reality platform that makes it happen. We turn ordinary slobs into heroes, man.

"A lot of times, more than I'd care to admit, all some people really ever want to do is have phenomenal sex. We provide that as well- of course with appropriate primers. Men want to feel dominant most of the time, mixed with a feeling of accomplishment right at the end. It takes a skilled team of mixologists to..."

I scribbled fast since he spoke fast. It's hard to think of the right questions when the end-game of your investigation means less than the garbage that no longer gets picked up by the city. Only the rich get sanitation. You need to frame everything you do in the right context in order for it to matter. Back when my old man was a cop, even back in my youth when I was a young detective, the context for doing your job was: to get the bad guys and bring them to justice. Now they operate with impunity. So, today my job is little more than a daily frustration. Anyway, moving on.

"But it's all fake," I stated and then paused as if awaiting confirmation.

"I beg to differ. It's real."

Toying with a perp is a good way to unhinge him or her. "Feeling real and being real are two different things, Eliot."

His face twitched defensively. "But when all you have to go by in this life are your five senses, then that's all you can trust, isn't it? If not, then I can go ahead and doubt that you're even here talking to me."

Touche`. I wondered whether he ever did talk to somebody that wasn't there. And how often.

"Those who can't afford some of the more high-end 'experiences' your establishment offers, what do they get?"

He mulled it over and wiped his pencil-thin goatee. "Low paying customers make up the bulk of our receipts. They get the primers without any storyboarding or programming into our computers. They get the emotions they can afford, mixed in with lights and sounds that assist with enhancing those emotions. That's what the funny colors and noise coming from the back are. The clients just sit in a room and feel an intense emotion of their own choosing, but without a context, so it's cheaper. Context matters and it comes with a premium."

You're damn right about that. Ever since the Supreme Court ruled that detention or imprisonment of any kind constituted unlawful search and seizure, I've been asking myself what the hell I'm doing in this occupation. Well, official police reports do affect people's credit so, at least I can be satisfied knowing the murderers I find can't purchase a home unless they pay cash, which most of them do anyway.

"Do you have any negative emotion primers?"

"Yes, many. About half of them."

"Why would anyone pay through the nose--" he snuffed at that, "to feel a negative emotion? Guilt, betrayal, jealousy, grief- those are all pretty shitty things to go through. Why pay for it?"

Trying hard not to be too pedantic, he explained. "The higher you get the harder you crash. How could life ever live up to a moment you know won't come again, because maybe after you sprung for it once, it's now out of your price range? Now invert that concept. Some people find it better to feel negative emotions in our den so that they're happier in real life. You can only get so low before you bounce once you hit the bottom. It all depends on how bouncy you are."

"What primers did Todd Svenson take?"

He made a dumb face. That old trick to catch them by surprise really works, except that sometimes they can clam up like an oyster in headlights.

"Todd..."

"Svenson. He was seen here last Saturday and by Sunday evening he was found dead. Suicide apparently." I had to be careful. I couldn't let on that there's at least a dozen Todd Svensons out there, killing themselves shortly after having gone to dens. I needed to get info without implicating the man or his boss in wrongdoing. If I wasn't careful, Eliot might tell me to go fuck myself. And I might get upset at that, causing all kinds of unwarranted problems. For me and for him.

I kept talking so he had less time to mentally process what I was getting at. As it is, if you weren't quick, you were dead. That was the law of the jungle pre-civilization, and that's the law of the jungle post-civilization. The Wild East of New York. I calmly explained to Eliot that I was on his side- that is, on his side and his boss's. I didn't like paperwork, I didn't like investigations, and since they don't really amount to a whole hill of beans any more, I wasn't lying.

I just needed his cooperation to look into the matter further, finish my paperwork and get on with my day. Lack of cooperation could immediately affect the credit score of the owners, of which he was one, I explained. In a cashless society, having bad credit is like being an alley cat. You eat the same things and sleep in the same places at night. A big difference is that people sometimes feed the alley cats.

Todd Svenson had written a suicide letter that our department psychologist called chilling. It was chilling because it was emotionless. He noted the pros and cons, and logically reasoned that it was best if he were dead. It was an straight calculation of one argument against another. In his air-tight conclusion, logic dictated he should take his own life.

The way he'd committed suicide was uncommon as well. He overdosed on nitroglycerin tabs and aspirin. He'd slowed his heart down to a stop and went to death as if to sleep. To sleep as if to dream. He was under a cozy blanket at the time we saw him and sported no expression on his face. The suicide note explained that in death he'd wanted to minimize the trouble he'd be to others, since his life was such an inconvenience already. There was no messy clean-up needed and the medical examiner went speedily by the book. Todd's body was in the morgue by lunchtime.

I didn't tell Eliot any of that. I wanted him to corroborate an explanation for me. Eliot, however, didn't fully remember Todd, and had to check in the appointment tablet. It appeared that the tablet had many files, a file on each client with every bit of information the Investigation Department would want- names, fees paid and owed, purchases, storyboards, primers. I drooled over it. Like a rookie I'd asked Eliot if I could have a copy of the files to look through. Like a pro he refused, saying that he wanted to, but that it amounted to an unlawful search. He didn't want to be complicit in anything unlawful, he explained to me.

It's okay, I could still get a warrant, I said. Prick.

"Colored Sky," he finally said after apparently memorizing the information on Todd. "He chose our platinum service Colored Sky package." I began to speak but he stifled me with a raised hand, which from his pansy ass seemed to be an aggressive gesture. I could tell he simply didn't want his train of thought broken, since it's an easy train to break anyway. "Before you ask, I'll tell you what Colored Sky is. It's $30,000. It's a premium blend of primers, mixed in with the highest quality programming and storyboarding. Emotions don't always make sense, so the storylines and programs, looked at by a sober mind with a steady emotional bearing, won't find much sense in it if you're looking from the outside in. But feeling the experience in every way, with all five senses, stimulating everything, people have called it a one-person symphony. They say it's like a journey and the beginning is very different from the end. It lasts all of ten minutes but it has the effect of ten years."

I would need the warrant. I need to see if the others committed suicide after experiencing Colored Sky. At least I know now that I need to confiscate the records, unless they delete them in the meantime. The records are a product of shady diligence by shady people. They're not required to maintain those records by law any more, so they're free to get rid of them the second I leave. Actually, they could go ahead and delete them in front of me while I finish my beer. But maybe I could dissuade him from thinking that far ahead by convincing him I'm not a threat.

"$30,000. That's a lot of money for anyone. Why's it called Colored Sky?"

"The sky's the limit, Detective. You break through the ceiling, straight to the fucking sky. And like I told you before, colors mean emotions." He scratched his cheeks and wiped his mouth. Had a tic or two.

He was getting antsy. Bored. On the verge of being no longer cooperative. I tried to be more conversational and convey that I'd leave as soon as the expired beer was down my gullet.

"I wonder if any rich guys try the Sky more than once," I mumbled to myself, loud enough for Eliot to hear.

"I've never seen repeat Skyers."

That's because they all kill themselves, you idiot.

I gulped the rest down, not wanting to be in the place another minute. I was re-energized. I could save lives here, and that sounded like a good context, a good frame of reference for my working this investigation. In an age where there's no reason to do much of anything except get wasted, a worthy cause can be a lightning rod. Finally, something I did on the job made a difference.

"Before this, Detective, people got drunk. People took drugs. For thousands of years. They escaped real life because they needed to escape. There will always be people for which life as it really is, isn't enough. And I hate to say it, but that's most people."

"So?" I didn't know where he was going with this.

"So, before you decide to expand your investigation into whatever this is, you should ask what came first, supply or demand? If demand goes away, so does the business supplying it. Business is booming and our receipts show it. We're giving people what they crave. Do you know how little life matters to so many people?"

Disgusted with everything to do with this den, and this city, I left without answering his question. Life's not fair, Eliot. Sometimes you don't get to both answer the questions and ask them.

The Life Penalty

Every day the same thing. Nearly. Day in, day out, very nearly the same, without any recollection of the last day's dreams or nightmares. I wake up at 5:30am after a long night's sleep. 28-year-olds require 8.75 hours of sleep a night, 5 glasses of water per day, 6 hours of exercise per week and big breakfasts with sufficient immuno-proteins and vita-mineral doses. More for men, slighty less for women.

I roll out of my comfortable Stability-Pod refreshed as ever a human was. I walk to the bathroom. What an archaic description of a room. Bathroom. Shower-room is more accurate. Or shit room, or pee room. Who has the time to bathe any longer? The tiles crisscross in hexagons on navy Italian marble. They barely register on my mind but they do register. I'm clean by 5:38. I walk to my boudoir to take out the day's clothes; it's a Saturday so I need to dress conservatively. As I sift through my drawers I notice my reflection in the stand-up mirror.

I never really stop to look at myself because of time constraints, but I look good. Silver eyes, olive skin, dark features, full perky breasts and the curves of my body seem to be lined in ink, drawn from some collective unconscious archetype of perfection. I guess that's what Gilaad loves about me. I look over to him, asleep on the pod, eyes furiously seeking out something in a rapid-eye reverie. Those eyes that once open, demonstrate the most gorgeous golden irises. He's been my longest relationship; we've been dating for almost three and a half weeks! The sleepyhead doesn't need to wake up until eight since he's an urban engineer and has a later shift.

After ingesting a kale-based nutrient shake, I leave the apartment to walk to my grandmother's place, just 10 blocks or so away. She's very old but she looks good. She was born in the 1980s! I guess that makes her about 100; she doesn't really talk about her age since she looks as healthy as I remember my mother looking back when I was in my single digits. Grandma gets regular treatment to repair and maintain the integrity of her DNA so she never looks any older than 45.

Time flies and technology runs away with it, the both of them eloping. It balloons exponentially every year as Moore's Law gets followed to the letter. My parents died in orbit from an unusually strong solar storm when I was young. The federally-mandated shielding was in place but it was inadequate for such a powerful burst of radiation. A few more years and they'd have had the luxury of a magnetic shield around their orbiter. "Innovations save only the survivors", indeed. That old Burt Wallman saying.

I had some green chamomile tea with her as we sat and played some chess. We discussed politics, how crude and Neanderthal-ish the idea of government is in modern times. As things advance, we cannot deny our basest instincts, those that inflame our passions such as politics and love. They are contorted, twisted, perfumed over, but still, we are ruled by the limbic system. It's what makes us human and colors our experience.

We talked about things that made us happy, memories we shared, the usual pleasantries. She wanted to wish me luck on my laureate defense and I thanked her profusely for her unwavering vote of confidence. At 12pm I was to defend my new laureate of Medical Practitioner. The defense included a patient assessment in front of a panel of three practitioners and a written test. I was very good at what I did and worked hard all my life. This was my intended path, my purpose.

My grandmother, who likes me to call her Rose, was a raucous supporter of mine since I was little. Throughout math team, debate, fencing, soccer, gymnastics, she was always the voice in my head cheering me on. I was unnerved by her last words to me before I left her, "Don't come back if you fail, dear," she said with a smile as she closed the door to me. I had to wonder at her mental status for a second before I shook my head and resolved that she was kidding. You never know with people who get DNA repair.

Some of the older people who had DNA treatments got side effects, unlike the rest of us who take in smaller portions of the chemical with our dailies. It was 7:03am when I left her and went to the university pool for a morning swim. Swimming after taking a shower can be considered silly but I can't stand waking up and not being clean. It's usually two showers and changes of clothes for me before lunch. I chose to take a shuttle to head to the school. It came at 7:07, perhaps a half minute late.

On the fast ride over, I noticed a shuttle artist, drawing on a pad with unlined, thick paper. She must stay on the shuttle pretty much all day as it goes back and forth so quickly. Some artists do that, trying to be slick enough to etch a straphanger before they exit, spending their days noticing, writing, reading, creating, doodling. It's all the same I figure. She wore a purple sweater and beret and had a beautiful face, with diamond eyes and lips that looked laden with oxygen-rich hemoglobin, as if it could be a new sanguine lipstick. I looked down to her pad, noticing the quick, light motions she made as she assembled a face together. The face of a man.

A very familiar face in fact- with a mustache and stubble on his cheeks, and a very grimy look about him. He was unlike the people I knew- he was ugly. His eyes were brown. In 2081, no one has brown eyes any more. Except for the Lower Class. For the Lowers, the trade-off to being provided for by the rest of society was the promise to do good and seek little, society always extending a path upward but with few taking it. In a way it's a negative feedback loop, a continuous spiral, and so there is more pressure on the Elite to come through. My personal opinion is that it's our duty to provide- give everything we can for everyone, especially those unable or unwilling to provide for themselves. The gene sequence for altruism is well known- and those born without it have a failure to thrive. There must be something to that. And yet some parents choose not to spring for the gene for a few extra bucks.

The girl in purple had a real talent. My parents did not choose art for my talent but rather science and medicine. I approached her softly and said, "That's a great job. You have a knack." Without acknowledging me or my compliment she, eyes intent on her particular canvas, said, "I don't think it's a knack, or a gift. I think it's a commodity. It's always a seller's market."

"Is that someone you know?"

She spoke matter-of-factly. Her tone was cold as a supercomputer's conducting units.

"Yes. He killed my best friend in front of me over some money credits he wanted us to transfer to him. I will never forget his face." I had that same strange nonplussed feeling as I walked out of the shuttle, glancing back at the pad and that face. I shivered. I hated that face and those brown eyes.

I headed to the Olympic sized pool, 100 meters by 50 meters after squeezing into my red one-piece and pulling a shower cap around my head. The entire time I was in the locker room I thought about the girl in purple. A murder? These days? People hardly even die any more, and even then it's by accident, something untreatable or unpreventable. Not murder. Blood runs warm in our slice of paradise. I took several laps, mingled with some friends, Janet and Rob, Lacey and Randy. They knew about my upcoming laureate defense and wished me well. We all finished our exercise at around the same time so we walked to the lockers together and showered.

I was eight when changing areas and restrooms were mandated to become co-ed and at the time it made no difference. I found it interesting how big a deal it was in my teens and how little it matters now. Even so, Randy always waits to ask me out when we're naked, and I always decline as I'm dressing. His parents refused to genetically alter him, so I lay it out for him daily, "You're not Enhanced, and I am. It would never work out." I smiled and kissed him on the cheek as I left to grab a little something to eat.

I had some delicious Britonfish sushi in the cafeteria and then observed the time. 11:23am. I would have to make my way to the lecture hall in my white lab coat, fully prepared for the final phase of my metamorphosis. The next 37 minutes flew by and the panel convened at noon precisely.

"Miss Tahira Stevens. You have been lauded by your peers and our faculty and have been bestowed the very prestigious honor of Medical Practitioner by Future Hope University. The defense of your laureate is the final step in your current academic journey and it begins now." The professors stood at their dais and clapped, encouraging the few onlookers to do the same.

There were Professors Bergman, Lani and Eckart in a row. Bergman was to lead the interrogation. "First off, can you tell us the name of the equipment you will be using to assess Patient X?"

The patient was sitting in a chair in a blue gown, lightly kicking her feet back and forth, with a distant look in her visage. Her eyes were brown and she was several pounds overweight. Certainly not Enhanced, and certainly belonging to the Lower Class.

Bergman began: "Ok, so let's discuss the equipment." The machine used to diagnose, treat and derive a prognosis was a General Electric Diagnosis and Treatment (D&T) Apparatus. My grandmother tells me that back her day, doctors only needed to know medicine, no programming or hardware repair or anything like that. Doctors were as primitive and ineffective then as politics are today.

"Due to the stipulations in chaos theory, the greater the possible arrangements in a closed system, the greater the chance of anomalies and 'ghosts in the machine'. What does the GE D&T Apparatus employ to mitigate the effect of such permutations in its high number of parallel processes?"

I knew the answer, except when I opened my mouth to speak, and my mind went blank. My mind never went blank; I don't remember that ever happening. My body and mind were at the peak of human capability. I was perfection. I was indestructible.

I was flummoxed. The trio saw my expression, and Dr. Bergman sought to put me at ease. "It's okay Miss Stevens, we know that you know. I understand this process can be nerve-wracking. The answer is that the D&T uses a sophisticated 2:1 string-level buffer to mitigate anomalies. Let it be known that Candidate Stevens failed to answer correctly. Now, if you will walk to Patient X. She is complaining about fatigue, a loss of interest in her daily activities, and insomnia. She gave birth three weeks ago to a boy. Please begin."

I was completely off my stride; my mind sought to be present but all I could gather was a big "file not found". "Okay. I'm Tahira Stevens, I'll be your MP today." I spoke to the dais. "I'm noting no...um, no central cyanosis..."

"Excuse me, Miss Stevens, but why is that relevant?"

"Beg your pardon?"

"Indeed she doesn't display central cyanosis but based on her symptoms, what does that have to do with anything? What relevance does it have? I'm just curious. You are at the top of your class, so as long as your reasoning is sound, we can accept this as a fair assessment. Is your reasoning sound?"

"Um, no. No, ma'am, I apologize." Murmurs began to grow like a shrill concerto of crickets and I started to sweat. To the patient, "Ok, ma'am, I'm just going to palpate your chest, so if you'll just pull down your gown—"

Dr. Lani chimed in, "Miss Stevens, Patient X is not here for a biannual physical, she's here for something very specific. Why do you feel the need to palpate her chest, given the indications she's reported to you? It's okay to do so if you suspect something specific, but it is out of the ordinary." A slight pause. He jotted something down. "Ok, please go on."

I palpated her chest, around the clavicles, down to the sternum, past the...the...I forgot what it's called...to the ribs. I took out my pen light and shone it in the patient's eyes. "The patient has alert and reactive pupils and her conjunctiva is an appropriate color."

Dr. Eckart was quiet; it was Bergman that spoke up. "Reactive pupils, conjunctiva? The patient didn't report having a traumatic injury to her head or anything that might be liver-related. Miss Stevens, are you completely here with us?"

Without fair warning to them or myself I began to cry, for the first time since I was a girl. "No, I don't know what's wrong."

"What you don't know, is what you're doing. In the Unenhanced, patients can get post-partum depression after giving birth. Your evaluation should have been a psychiatric one. This was a very obvious diagnosis, Miss Stevens and as an MP, you would need to know how to treat the Unenhanced. They would make up the bulk of your patients. I'm sorry to stop you where you are madam, but I'm going to have to decline your laureate."

"I as well."

"Me too." And like that it was over. The laureate defense was adjourned.

The next hour was a blur and I found myself outside, still crying. I looked out to the colossal skyscrapers in the distance and wondered at my fate. Everything my life had been building up to is gone in this flippant, fickle world. It was like carefully constructing a sandcastle for 28 years, only for a rogue wave to wipe it all away.

I could not feel worse. All my hopes and my dreams, everything I meant to ever accomplish, all collapsed to a singularity. A five minute mental hiccup guided the path of my journey for the rest of my days. I won't be able to help people or make an MP's substantial income; I have no future.

On my watchphone I saw that I had one message awaiting me from Gilaad: "Hi hun, I heard the news. I'm so sorry about your laureate. I'm going through some problems too right now, and I think we should just be friends. We had fun, but I don't think we're meant to be together."

I couldn't stand being in the tangle of twisted metal in the city any longer. I needed to be in and among nature, so I headed towards Glennie Hill Park. Though something in me didn't want to notice, I observed how generic the scenery was as I walked by. Building, building, tree. Building, building, tree.

The apartments all looked the same, with the same basic blocky setup for the businesses that I passed. There was a similar look about the people that walked by. They were similar to each other; generic. Although I wasn't quite myself, I was sure that that wasn't the way people tended to look.

I stopped at a particular red door which led to a little espresso shop that was closed. Something drew me to it. I knew, I just knew, that there was nothing behind that door. If I were to open it, I'd see only blackness, or bricks, or maybe a grid pattern etched in green ones and zeroes, or something else completely out of the norm.

As I turned back around, unable to will myself to reach the door, I heard a whooshing sound. Everyone who was walking stopped dead in mid-stride and the entire world seemed to skip like a broken 150 year old record. People stutter-stepped several false starts over and over.

With another quick whoosh, time moved back at its regular pace with the entire world back in gear. I shook my head violently in response to the strangeness of what I'd just witnessed. Turning, I saw the coffee shop with the red door was no longer there.

I'm cracking up, I thought. I needed to be away, needed to go to the park and sit. In a city of 13 million people, the park seemed very sparsely populated by comparison. There were few people on benches, some couples here and there, but they came and went. By 7pm, it was just me in the gathering autumn darkness, feeling oddly empowered by the sting of the November cold.

It was just me and a man in a dark coat. With a mustache, grizzled, grimy face and brown eyes. My sympathetic nervous system kicked in fully. "Hey girl." He had a gruff voice, very different from most men. "Transfer your money credits to me. Hand over your NAT. Now. I'm not asking." I had learned strategies in school to defuse situations like this, with people that could not be swayed by reason.

One technique was to use logic, although it was counter-intuitive, like giving a stimulant to an Unenhanced child with ADHD. What did an emotional person with no sense of reason need with my logic? "I physically can't transfer credits to you without getting approval by the bank. They dig into things like this. Unless the purpose of the transfer exists within the law, the bank simply won't let me do it. It's like asking me to turn into a balloon. I just can't, no matter how much I want to or how much you want me to."

He smiled behind dark glasses and lifted some metallic object. "Turn into a balloon." He paused and stopped smiling. "Turn into a balloon. Right now." My heart beat to a gallop and I began to sweat from my hairline to the palms of my hands. "You look like you don't recognize this from the movies," he said. "It's a gun."

I wondered how he was able to acquire such an antique and then I figured he must have stolen it. At knifepoint. I didn't know what to do or how to handle such wild Unenhanced creatures. I'd always been taught to pity them for their crude animalism. So I decided to appeal to its...that is his, baser emotions.

"Look, sir, I'll give you whatever you want, I promise. I'll do favors for you, I'll sleep with you. I'll do anything for you in bed, anything. Just please put that thing down."

His grin stretched wide again. The man waved me off with his gun hand and pretended to wretch. "No. I don't want that. The thought of it sickens me. You failed your laureate today. Not even Randy would touch you now. You're dried up, you're done, your world is over and now your life is going to be."

Stunned I began, "How did you kn—" and then there was a bright flash along with a thunderous echo as the hammer of the mechanism came down. He laughed as he skulked away, a modern-day Jack the Ripper. I'd make him famous, in all likelihood.

Blood poured from the entry and exit wounds and I nervously saw myself pooling on the floor. I was filled with absent hope, with the realization that I would not achieve anything any more, ever, as my heart beat away the last of my strength in the park I had come to visit, my eyes seeing no longer yet staring into the sky more intently than a living person ever could. Those last moments take a long time to process as you feel your body go cold, face first, then ice reaches closer and closer to your heart as extremities drain out through whichever path gravity guides them.

Life. It takes a lifetime to build but mere moments to collapse.

Poof! That's when the computer simulation ends and I exit, groggy and confused. The guards say nothing. Then they throw me half a steak and dry potatoes with some piss water. I get an hour to myself after dinner, and they tranquilize me again. Back in 2056, some people were up in arms when the government abolished the death penalty. They don't know that this life penalty is worse. It's the same fate for everyone on "life row." To relive the last day of one of your victims as one of your victims.

The only customization built into the program is that they use your face, your voice as the murderer. That girl is made up, she doesn't exist but every day I'm always her. The simulation disengages your hippocampus so you don't recall your own actual memories. Then it exchanges your real ones for her fake ones. And you feel what she feels. You feel what you made others feel. And when you go to sleep you fall asleep with the fear that tomorrow it happens all over again and you won't remember it until the simulation ends. Then the steak. Then the potatoes. Then the piss water.

Every single fucking day the same thing.

The Traveling Genie

Abu Abed was a humble leather tanner in the tranquil village of Gul. It was the tail end of sundown, the end of the sun's slow descent back to hell. Abu was hauling the rest of his wares indoors as the souk had officially closed. He was putting away belts and boots, jackets and vests, when an old man on a strong horse trotted into the souk. With a nod, the old man remarked, "The market closes late these days. Everyone is hoping for one last buyer. Or one last seller."

The old stranger wore both his hair and his beard long and white, his face mostly covered with a desert shawl. His eyes were the color of the bark of an olive tree and his voice had the coarseness that came with decades of smoking in old hookah lounges.

"My friend, are you looking for one last seller for some item you seek?" Abu asked him, head bowed at the elder stranger. "You look as if you've been riding long in the desert. Would you care to be refreshed with tea and have some food to eat, before you set out again?"

The double spheres of olive bark slowly swept about as if to take in an inventory of the waning marketplace, the people rolling up their carpets, covering up their figs, and stashing away all of their merchandise. "No, thank you kind child. I seek the fairer side of fortune and have allowed only fortune to lead my way. Fortune will not let me stop here tonight, but rest assured that offers of your kindness do not go unseen by the spirits that dwell on earth. There is reward for you if fortune should see fit, young man."

"I would not know what to do with such a reward if I had one, sir." Abu looked over the man's horse, burdened by baggage. "Few do." The man with the olive eyes agreed.

"Hand me a fig from that cart," the man asked. "Only this do I desire tonight. Then, I go back to the desert to continue my long journey." Abu thought it over, then produced his money purse where he stored the profit from the day's sales.

"Stealing is a grave crime in this village. I would not that either of us would lose our hands." He took some figs from a fig cart, and placed a copper coin underneath it. The old man took the fig and looked at it. He flipped it up in the air and caught it. Without a thanks or a goodbye, he rode off. The night was very quiet. Every other shopkeeper had gone inside to retire for the evening.

Abu stayed a little while longer, savoring the cool, windy, sandy breeze, and the smell of leather, of spices, of fruits, and of water, as nearby there was a small freshwater lake that sustained the desert oasis of Gul. From across the souk, he could still hear the muffed hoof-beats of the old man's horse as he rode away. All of a sudden he heard a loud thunk, as if something large fell off the horse. The old man!

Abu ran in the direction of the settling sandy dust. He ran for what felt like a mile but might have been a hundred yards instead. In the lessening light he could see something like a small barrel in the shape of a wine carafe in the sand. There were hoof-prints around it. "This must be the thing that's fallen off the horse. This is not the old man although it may be similar," he thought and then laughed. As he squinted his eyes he could see he was near the lake. Darkness laughs as it leads you towards it. His father had a saying- "All are lost save those that intend to be." He never knew what that meant.

He should be turning back, he resolved. At night it was easy to lose one's way. But if this bottle belongs to the old man, he may return to retrieve it. Abu decided to take it home with him and if the man came back, he'd simply give it back after once again offering him food, drink and perhaps a place to rest until morning.

Once he touched the bottle he saw it come alight with all colors, slowly changing from one to the next. First blue, then pink, then purple, then orange, then green, then yellow, then red. Then the rest. A radiant fire seemed to burn within the bottle, and the flames oozed out, like smoke, like wine, until it formed the image of a great, tall man.

The man was dressed like royalty, with a sultan's crown on his head and a giant scimitar sheathed on his right. The man bellowed as he spoke. "Young one, my name is Faisal. I am the spirit of this vessel. I dwell within its confines and can only escape when one so allows." His voice seemed to echo off the mountains in the distance.

Abu covered his head and fell on his knees, afraid of the spirit. He had heard of those called jinn, who are made of fire, powerful and frightening. "Please spirit, leave me be. I did not mean to disturb you. Do not seek revenge upon me for my intrusion, I beg of you."

The genie seemed to hover inches above the ground. "On the contrary, master Abu, it is I who must beg of you. Grant me freedom from this imprisonment, to which I was sent one thousand years ago. I shall pay for my freedom with a wish. It may be whatever you might desire, young Mr. Abed."

"How is it that you came to be bound to this vessel?"

"I committed sins in my past, before this was my home. I was not always a servant of this vessel, beholden to a benefactor that might someday set me free. I was once the caliph of a great caliphate. I was rich, prosperous, and thought myself a just ruler. As sovereign, I oversaw all capital trials. This was a grand pleasure for me- to judge with absolute, unquestioned power. One day a young man was brought before me for poaching from the royal stream. Stealing from the royalty meant a penalty of death.

"It came to my attention that this young man was the estranged, homeless son of my vizier, Ahmed, who petitioned me for mercy. He fell prostrate upon the floor and begged me. 'My son was hungry, my lord. Surely you will find it in your vast, divine mercy to spare his life. I thought him dead once but he is now alive. There should be joy, not sorrow from his return. I will pay your excellency the cost of ten pieces of gold for the fish my son stole.' But my heart would remain hardened, and his son was stoned to death the very next morning. I thought little of it until Ahmed confronted me the next day.

"Unknown to me, Ahmed was a powerful sorcerer, who wielded power like a genie. He bound my spirit to the item you discovered, that I may become the servant of whomever should find it. My only escape would be through my service. So long as I desire freedom, I would need to serve the finder as my master, and retain freedom only when my master granted it to me."

The genie tipped the bottle so that Abu could see within. It was much deeper than it appeared. From above the rim, one could see a palatial home within. "Ahmed cursed me to live the glorious life of a king, alone, without servants, in the presence of exquisite riches which offer no happiness. Within the bottle, I live in a grand palace. I have a room of immense treasures and jewels, and millions of pieces of gold and silver. In my garden, the trees are made of gold, the grasses are emeralds and the fruits on the trees and flowering plants are all various gems. Diamonds, sapphires, rubies, pearls. But they give me no joy. And they never shall again." He began to weep and it sounded like thunder.

Abu asked, "No one has found you in a thousand years?"

The genie looked up with tear-stained eyes. "There were three masters. The first to find me asked for a hundred pieces of gold for my freedom. I looked into his heart and saw only greed. He did not wish for the money in order to help himself or his family out of poverty. He simply wished to drink, lay with women, and lord his riches over his enemies. I therefore slew him for his greed. I judged that he not benefit from an impure will. The second to find me asked for a thousand pieces of gold, in return for my freedom. I slew him as well, as he was a man of many vices and much cruelty. He would have spent the thousand pieces on harlots and corruption of politicians to do his bidding.

"The third to find me was the old man, whom you met. That is Ahmed, the sorcerer, and through some magic he still lives today. I do not know what he wants from me, but he is collecting all the genies he has banished, into lamps, bottles, wineskins, gathering them perhaps to kill them. Though my life is one of abject humility and servitude, I do not wish it to pass. I long to live free and not perish by the hand that imprisoned me. Please, master Abu, I fear him. I will give you ten thousand pieces of gold in return for my freedom. I see you are a man of kindness and mercy. I judge you worthy."

Abu thought over what the genie had said. He also thought about the old man he met tonight with the olive bark colored eyes. "I wish for an oil lamp, two flint stones, and for one hundred pieces of stone pebbles." The genie smiled. "Yes sir, lord Abu!" In a bright flash an oil lamp appeared, and one hundred pebbles. Abu said, "I promise you, Jinn Faisal, that the sorcerer Ahmed will not find you for another thousand years."

He then quickly filled the genie's vessel with the hundred stones, crushing the palace and the garden within. "For your wickedness against the vizier's son, for the slaying of the two innocent masters whom you had the opportunity to repay with kindness, I banish you to the bottom of this lake for a thousand years!" And he threw the vessel into the lake, where it sank to the very bottom, weighed down by the rocks.

He then lit the oil lamp with the flint stones and walked back home to his leather tannery, to be ready for the next day at the market.

Lucy the Last Vampire

Lucy opened the curtains. Her lover was gone, dissipated into a mist of forgetfulness, like the residue of a lost dream. She is nude, her white skin resembling the color of curtains and bed sheets. Looking out from the window there is green all around, a fertile world that is breathing, alive. Thickly wrapped in a dense fog but breathing through it.

Lost in the present she soon forgot her dream, could not for the moment recall the lover she had taken the night before. His musk still lingers, as yet unperceived. She no longer remembers searching for something that was lost. The search usually ends when the lost is found, but she resigned herself to the perpetual search of something unobtainable. Once the troubles of love are forgotten there is a release as if from bondage; like a human sacrifice chained to a rock swept away by a crashing wave there is a tidal feeling of peace. The peace of an ending, whatever that may be.

The theme of her house was comfort and tranquility. She wanted to give houseguests a subtle taste of the hereafter, as if perhaps they had passed and gone to heaven. She thought of it as her own little haven, a refuge apart from the world's travails. Many guest rooms had flowing white drapes; there were mock alabaster and stained glass windows. Her house was on a large plot of land, far removed from the city. Outside the haven in all directions was the delicate quiet of nature.

She walked to the Roman white and black tile bathroom and took a shower. Unnoticed was the scalding temperature of the water, or the rose red swirling down the drain. Lucy had zoned out, having just fed. Often she had wandered about in the nude, reveling in nudity's freedom, in its release from the very basest of restrictions.

Her house echoed her minimalist personality- she had very little furniture and almost no appliances or kitchenware. She only possessed what she needed, and never got caught up in any extraneous luxuries. Just so, her house never felt empty, even at night, when the white drapes looked gray. She was wrapped in an invisible shroud from which she drew comfort. While her contemporaries spent their lives in opulence and splendor, Lucy preferred the splendor of simplicity. It always delivered what it promised. Simplicity never lets you down because it manages all expectations.

She let the hot water roll down her back and stood in the shower for a half hour. She used to love her morning showers. Now it's just a part of the routine. Her hair was dark ebony and accentuated her soft white skin. Her eyes were celestial blue and seemed to radiate a light of their own. She kept a small glimmer after all that transpired. Looking into the mirror, Lucy knew she was beautiful but her knowledge was intellectual; she hardly reflected on her own beauty. It was simply a neutral truth, like "the sky is blue". She could have just as easily been ugly, and that would have been its own emotionless factoid, like "shit stinks." Move on.

The bathroom had the only large mirror in the house. She used to look at herself and would be transfixed by her own eyes. Often she'd peer into the mirror, trying to discern something- looking for some revelation of identity. Who am I? is often answered by long bouts of soul searching. If eyes were the windows to the soul, then the eyes hold the answer.

Removing one's clothing does not make one truly bare. Standing in front of the mirror, she'd try to peel away her layers, searching for something in herself that would give her away. She spent years in this almost daily ritual, unraveling the intertwined mesh of herself that would give her some clue as to who she really is.

In the past she did yoga, spent hours in meditation. One of her friends taught her how to do it. Breathe deeply in, and exhale at a measured pace. Focus on breathing and breathing only, and the inner self reveals wonders once you remove the ambient noise. "Lucy..."

Her mind goes back to that lifetime ago, that moment ago.

"Good morning, star-shine..." that's how it all started. Or ended.

Born the daughter of a great movie producer who had no wife or other children, Lucy inherited a great deal of "old money" without the hassle of employment. Without the need to scrape for survival. Not to say she didn't work, or wasn't involved in that Hollywood world herself. She did spend many evenings typing away on an old family typewriter, writing screenplays, books, creating characters and plots like some omnipotent hermit.

She knew she wasn't very good at coming up with story lines but she was a genius when it came to crafting characters. Whittling them from the brittle wood of possibility. Though the stories she'd write were unspectacular, admittedly, the dialogue and the scene progression left a reader enthralled. She wrote some smutty romance novels, and some screenplays based on those novels.

Romance was almost always cheesy especially when there was humor, so Shakespeare-level talent isn't really necessary for success. Romance is one of those things that sells at a profit, because it's a renewable resource high in demand. Each of her works were written on the old typewriter and then transcribed to the electronic page via assistant. There was a new assistant practically every week.

Her father had called the typewriter "Shelly", and Lucy never quite knew why. Perhaps Shelly was an old girlfriend of his, or an old mistress. Shelly was the main character in at least three of her books, one of which did become a movie. Had Lucy been Jane Shmoe, no one would have given a second thought to her scripts or books. Publishers would surely have rejected her, and studios would not think twice about redlighting her projects.

However her father had a great reputation for turning "shit into gold", as one critic put it. He often produced movies and plays that were risky and could have flopped, but his judgment was proven right time and again. The audience is stupid, he said often, and they would buy it. Towards the end of his career he'd made his money mostly through action films with no depth.

Lucy's stories, in fact, did make the studios and book publishers a profit, so they continued to entertain her creativity. No one openly questioned her reclusive lifestyle, but she was often rumored to be an insane genius with a wild sexual appetite that no man or woman could satiate. Legends grow when no one's there to contradict them. So do lies.

One night, she had made herself some soup, boiled some water for tea, and sat at Shelly. She took a sheet of paper and rolled it into the typewriter. Nothing new had been written in a while. The same thing over and over again bored her. Romance was often as boring to write as it was exciting to read.

Odd as it was, she would sometimes drive to the cemetery at night and go where her father was buried. Lucy would talk to him. She felt odd inspiration from the one-sided conversations. She never sought her birth mother when her father was alive, but now that he was gone curiosity turned into cat poison.

"Hey Pops. Back again. If you were around you'd probably think I'm nuts being out here alone like this. Especially wearing what I'm wearing when it's this cold out with no jacket." A pause, as long as was needed to think of the next thing while the brisk night wind picked up and then died down. It wasn't an awkward pause; Lucy felt that the sense of time experienced by the dead must be totally different than that of normal perception. Moments pass like millennia, centuries pass like days.

"I've lost my inspiration again, Pops. I think that no matter how hard I've been trying, I just, I don't care about Shelly any more. The more I write about her, the more I don't like her. She's spoiled, shallow, and I don't know, a little too promiscuous. I'm not trying to please the public, the readers, because in all honestly, they probably love that she's like that. I'm not trying to craft her in any way, it's like, she's already there and I'm just telling her story. She's stubborn, and I can't change her. I just kind of...hate her.

But maybe...maybe I can write about her lover- Henry. All the crap he has to deal with from, all the sleepless nights and the worry about her affaits, and the long forgotten nostalgia he felt once he found her. Writing a story in the first person from his point of view would be interesting to me...yeah, I'll do it." She moved to a tree near the tombstone and didn't notice any leaves rustling.

"Dad, you know who Henry's based on, right? I think I told you before- he's partly you; I think any man I write about, he'll always be at least a little bit you. The beard is you. The rest is David, Tanya's 'boyfriend'. My god, he's gorgeous, he's got these chestnut eyes, beautiful brown hair and a smile like...his teeth actually twinkle. I always had a thing for him ever since we were in college.

"But Tanya was the more aggressive one. She went after him, and she got him. I know he always liked me too, I can see it in the way he smiles at me, his tone of voice, and the way he checks me out when he thinks I'm not looking. Now I only see him at Tanya's fancy-shmancy parties; if it wasn't for that, I'd be a total recluse." She turned back to the tombstone. "Then it would just be me and you, Dad, in this uneven arrangement. Until we were both the same thing. Both spirits."

Now she finally heard the rustling. She looked toward the sound and saw a hunched old man struggling to stay on his feet ultimately falling against the tree. He was black-clad, wearing antiquated vestments that looked like a monk's robe. His head was covered by a hood. His left arm stuck out as he tried, with effort, to get back up. Lucy noticed how pale that arm was, how black the fingernails were, and she observed several purple bruises.

"Oh my god, sir are you okay?"

With some strain, he mouthed "Yes...yes. Please, help me up."

She went over to get a grip on him, lift him back onto his own legs and as she did, she grabbed his bare arm. It was deceivingly muscular. "Sir, you're ice cold, you'd better get inside. Where do you live?"

With the slightest of accents, "I—I live in the monastery on the other side of the cemetery. Occasionally we embark on isolated journeys of self-exploration, or prayerful walks of meditation. I'm out in this chilly night as a kind of flagellation, a punishment for my sins. Our hope is that if we submit to answering for our sins on Earth, they shall be waived in Heaven. But I can't go back there; my brothers are all asleep and I have no key. It is forbidden to wander the grounds after lights out, but I simply had to leave."

Lucy was at a loss- she wanted to help the old man. There was something about him that drew her to him, like magnets with opposing charges. "Well, you can't stay out like this, sir; you'll die of the cold. I have my car parked just outside the gate. I can drive you to a hotel or something."

"That would be very kind of you miss, but for an old man like me, dying of cold wouldn't be the worst thing. And it's impossible at any rate. Despite my appearance I'm actually quite healthy. I took these robes to atone for the sins of my life, and atone I shall."

They strode through the cobblestone steps leading out of the graveyard. Lucy noted that the steps looked less designed to be escorting the grieving in, and more to line the way out. The way the unpaved road angled, it was like it was pointing towards the exiting fence. The old man had regained his composure and was able to walk better. She couldn't see him well since he was still hooded, but the appearance of his bare arm worried her; would he die in her car? It looked paradoxical; like the arm of a dead man, lifeless, yet in possession of hidden dexterity.

She unlocked the car and opened his door to let him in.

"May I enter your car?" he said.

"Yes of course; that's why I opened the door!" she said with a genial smile. She then went around to her own side. Before she turned the ignition she glanced at him to learn that perhaps she had been mistaken about him. The low light of the cemetery had apparently played tricks on her. She saw his face, which was haggard, unkempt and old, incredibly old, but he didn't look quite like a man on the verge of calling it quits. His arm didn't look like she thought it did minutes ago. There were no bruises and his nails were pink. He looked more alive than dead now.

"I'm sorry for scaring you back there," he said. "I often begin walking the grounds at dusk in all kinds of weather, meditating, praying, suffering with temptation and gnawing appetite. I came around that corner with the magnificent mausoleums. I heard you talking so I came by, thinking you were perhaps someone with mal-intent. Not many people come to the cemetery at night for good reasons.

"But then I heard you speaking to your father there, at one in the morning as if it had been one in the afternoon, as if he were right in front of you. Your love for your father touched me and I have to admit, I lingered to take it in. Just as I was about to leave I felt weak and dizzy. I haven't eaten in a long time. Low blood s-sugar."

After pulling out of her parking spot she hit the brakes again. "Wait, where are we going? Is the hotel okay?"

"Miss, I, I don't have any money, and I refuse any that you may offer me to stay at some lodging. I'd be content to be out in the cold, back where you found me. My brothers would find me asleep in the morning and take care of me."

"Can I drive you back to the monastery?"

"No, it is forbidden to leave after the sun goes down. They would not let me in until daylight at any rate. It is out of the question, I assure you."

Lucy let out an unintentional sigh. "Don't take this the wrong way, but you can stay with me at my house tonight. I have a guest room you can use. But you really should be out before your brothers wake up, before you get in trouble." The wheels of the car began to turn.

His eyes were far away, practically out the window. "I'm already in trouble."

"What?"

"For leaving the grounds after sunset. It's alright though. I've been bucking the rules for years. So many years." A pause. "Alright. I accept your offer and I thank you for helping an old stranger. You know, the Lord is watching, and He will make sure to note it on the day of judgment."

Lucy rolled her eyes unintentionally.

"You have no religion?"

"I do, I just don't really live it night and day like a monk would. I'm just not sure what to believe, and I'm happy not knowing."

"Well get happy knowing and believe what I am telling you; He sees all the good deeds." He tucked his chin into his chest and scraped his dry hands together. "And the bad ones too."

Before the air got heavy with awkwardness, he said in a conciliatory tone, "It's not a matter of believing or not believing, it's about knowing or not knowing...yet. Anyway, what is your name, young lady?"

She took her hand off the wheel to offer it, still keeping her eyes on the road. "Lucy. Lucy Weathers."

The man smiled for the first time. It would have been endearing had she seen it. "Lucy W. That is so funny."

"Why is that so funny?"

"You see, my first name is Vlad, for Vladimir and my last name is Drake, for Saint Drake of Amsterdam. An evil Romanian prince named Vlad the Impaler was also known as 'Dracula'. This was a family name, and it meant "Dragon." He was known as Vlad Dracula. I'm sure you've heard of him. My name sounds very similar. Well in Bram Stoker's book, there was also a beautiful character with the name Lucy W. So, it's funny to me. We are Lucy W and Dracula, you and I."

She distractedly silenced her buzzing cell phone. "Weird coincidence, yeah."

"I do not believe in coincidence. I believe that everything is written on a big book before we are born. It avoids the problem of evil to have that perspective. How could there be evil if everything that is supposed to happen DOES happen? And yet, we must pay for the occasions when we are evil, simply following our script."

After a long look out the window he asked, "Why did you not answer your phone?"

Lucy blushed uncontrollably; her pale complexion was like a canvas upon which warm dilated capillaries colored her face red and betrayed her emotions.

Another smile from the stranger. "Ah, I see from the blood rising to your cheeks that it is a man calling. I will not pry."

"No it's okay, I don't really have anything personal to hide. Plus they say confession is good for the soul, right? And you're a priest so that's perfect."

"Well Miss Lucy, I'm not really a priest, I'm a monk. And I have no interest in judging you; that is not for me."

"He's not the guy I want, but he's a guy that I'm talking to. His name is Charlie Raines. I don't go out often, Brother Drake, but I met this guy back when I did. He recently contacted me, and we've been going out. Weird that he called me at this hour; weirder still, he keeps saying we're 'soul mates'. He's told me that when we're apart, he knows how I'm feeling. Whether I'm awake or asleep, in trouble or excited, he says he knows. It's kind of creepy but also kind of sweet."

Vlad cleared his throat. "Yes. I believe in finding others like yourself to share moments with. In two being of one kind. Sometimes it takes much longer than a single lifetime to find one, but once you do Miss Lucy, you know you must never let go. You can live hundreds of years and remain alone. Mister Charlie seems like a smart man not to let you go so easy."

With a yawn and a clank she shifted the gears into park. It was a misty night and looked almost as tired as she felt. "Here we are. Watch your step; we're on a pretty steep incline."

She yawned again as she opened the heavy wooden door to her home, then looked back at her guest who was at the bottom step, hands nervously folded one upon the other.

"May I enter here?"

"Of course, this is my house."

"I'm sorry, I'm not used to such kindness. It may be strange to hear that from a monk. Consider me old-fashioned about my manners. Can you invite me in? I have not been invited into one's house in...quite a long time."

"O...K... Will you please come in?"

His eyes looked moist. "Yes, thank you". As he entered she saw his face more clearly- the prominent bridge of his nose, the hawkish face, the vulpine tufts of hair from his temples. Out in the night she perceived him as a helpless man but looking at him now he appeared far more put together, far more dimensional. His hair was white. His eyes were a light hazel, but with a fire inside them, a certain opalescence.

"Can I get you some tea or coffee, Vlad?"

"No, thank you Miss Lucy. Would you perchance, have any wine? They keep us so dry in the monastery. I have already broken one rule tonight, I might as well go all out." He smiled a fantastic white-toothed smile with a child-like sincerity she found very near adorable.

She smiled back, unintentionally. She thought of herself doing so many things unintentionally tonight and found it funny. "I have some wine downstairs in the basement- I like to keep the first and second floors of my house immaculate. Simple. So my cellar's full of all manner of crap you can think of. I'll be right back. Please make yourself comfortable. I'm sorry I don't have a TV for you to watch."

"That is alright, I will just sit here, thank you. Monasteries don't have televisions either." Lucy disappeared from sight in the dark corridor leading to the stairway that ran to the cellar. She departed on agile wings down the flight, which was closer to hell than the first floor. But only slightly.

Vlad rose from the couch to observe the house, noticed some porcelain animal figurines in her bedroom, which was by far the most decorated room in the place. The bed covers were pink and the lamp shade was a most ambient combination of yellow and orange, like a nostalgic old photograph. He walked over to the bathroom with the black and white checkered marble tile, looked in the mirror and wept.

When Lucy came back she had brought a large bottle of wine, an empty carafe, and two full glasses on a tray. She found Vlad weeping in his hands in great sobs, like a child unsuccessfully trying to contain his sadness.

"Mister Drake, what's wrong? Why are you crying?"

It was a half-minute before the man pulled himself together. When he removed his hands she could see his face was red, not pallid as before. "There are many reasons why I am crying, Miss Lucy, and I am sorry. Part of the reason is that I did not know I still could. My father was institutionalized when I was young. Before that, he used to tell me that the biggest difference between the dead and the living is...moisture.

"The living are wet, the dead are dry. My father might have been crazy, but following his logic, I am perhaps more alive than dead. Look, Miss Lucy Weathers, real tears. Real saline tears."

"Looks like you can use a drink. Looks like I can too..." She deftly served libations and they played gracious host and gracious guest to one another as the hostess began to second-guess her hospitality.

They finished off carafe after carafe until the bottle was empty, as they talked in depth about Charlie Raines.

"So is he your soul mate, Miss Lucy? Are you both kindred spirits star-swept by fortune into one another's arms again?"

"What do you mean 'again', Mister Drake?"

"It's possible that we live many lives, Miss Lucy. Surely you've heard of reincarnation. Maybe it's true. Maybe we find one another and lose one another over and over, as we spend lifetimes searching for what we lost before. That is what I believe- that is what life has taught me of love. It is a return, rather than an unknown destination. This may not be a religious belief, but religion does not answer all questions as well as it answers the most important ones. Perhaps it is the wine talking."

"The wine?" She laughed. "I haven't had this much to drink in years. You look perfectly fine but me, I'm drunk. The last time I got drunk was my father's funeral, I think." Her pale cheek and her nose became rosy as the alcohol thinned the blood in her vessels.

Vlad sighed and seemed to look blue, actually BLUE, for perhaps a second. He turned away from her and put the wine down. "I was there, at your father's wake."

Lucy felt giddy. It was either the wine or something else altering her perception, but she didn't care. She felt good. Crisp. She was not herself and for the first time in a long time, it was great. "You were? Hahaha. What were you doing at my father's funeral? And if you really were there- what's his name?"

"Morgan Weathers. I've been to many funerals, Lucy. I've been trying to atone for so long for all the evil I've done in my life. Attending funerals is one way I thought I could pay back the sins, by surrounding myself with sorrow and comforting loved ones of the deceased. I've been to hundreds, and never once did I say the right thing. Never once was I a comfort. I don't know what people need to hear. I've been away from humanity for so long that I forgot the language."

Lucy had a fit of hysterical laughter. She certainly wasn't herself and Drake knew it, sadly. "People, heh, people need to hear um, honest, sincere, sympathy. You have to mean it. And, and if you were at Morgan Weathers' funeral, how come I don't remember you? I'd remember you, VLAD, 'cause you're old and you have distinctive features."

"You wouldn't have remembered me like this. I had brown hair and a fuller face. I had just fed beforehand." He sucked in some air and let it out, even though he didn't need to.

"I must confess to you, Miss Lucy, that I am a vampire. A real vampire, in the soggy flesh."

"A vampire? That's...oh man, don't take this the wrong way but that's disappointing. I thought vampires were supposed to be all sexual and seductive and you're...like I said, you're old." Lucy didn't know what she was saying. It was like she was under a spell. In many ways, she was. Being under the charm of a vampire is like folding to the will of a Master Hypnotist.

She felt like she was under the influence of some great drug, some mescaline, that made her feel like an open portal to other dimensions, if it could have been described to feel like anything at all.

Vlad mustered up as much strength as he could to change his form. His hair became brown and his eyes became darker as well. He produced a far more youthful appearance for a short time. Then his hair whitened again and his skin became cyanotic once more. Lucy recognized the man as someone she did meet at her father's wake. "He is not gone for good, you know. He is always with you," he had told her then. "He is free".

"You really were there. You're really a vampire. This is so cool." She rubbed her forehead as if to scrub out a migraine. He touched her and she felt his cold dead fingers around her forearm. She turned to him and gasped; he looked like a man dead for days, with sunken, moisture-less eyes.

"I have starved myself for punishment, I have staked myself, I've even done ridiculous superstitious things like stare at crosses and eat cloves of garlic but I cannot die. I am the last one. My bastardization of a life is an evil which cannot be snuffed out and I am alone in carrying it."

Lucy's head was killing her. "Man, this is heavy for right now. Why, why do you want to die?"

"Because of all the things I must do to survive. Because I must kill, because I take precious life. While we're at confession Miss Lucy, I must admit I do not plan on letting you live. But I do not plan on freeing your soul from the bonds of this earth, either." He began to cry, this time without tears, in dry sobs. There were no more tears. No more moisture.

There were so many feelings in Lucy, so much fire in her arteries and veins, that she felt like she were running, flying, coursing like the pulse of a Leviathan, riding on a beam of light. "You can drink...my blood. Get...your strength back. I won't mind. I'm loving whatever this strange emotion is. It feels heavenly."

"It is just like Hell." Dejected, beaten, and hungry, he moved Lucy's wrist and turned her hand over. His delicate eyes could see the throbbing of her radial artery. 75 beats per minute. When he finished her heartbeat would be slower. Much, much slower. She will sleep, he thought. Good. He snapped out his over-sized upper canine teeth and bit into her soft, warm flesh. He took just enough blood to keep her alive.

The next day she awoke at three in the afternoon. Vlad was there, watching her as she slept, happily witnessing her wakefulness. "Miss Lucy, you are awake! Come, let me fetch you some soup. I made it at noon. It will help your convalescence."

She looked exceedingly wan, with black orbits around her eyes. "My dear you look awful. You need to regain your strength. You need to drink lots of water, take this soup, and try to get plenty of sunshine." He opened the curtains whereupon a flood of radiance bombarded her pupils and skin. "Oh, no, that's too bright, please no."

"But it is good for you Miss Lucy. I know you must feel terrible, and I have to say I feel even worse. For breaking a promise, for harming your trust, for taking advantage. I will answer your questions as you get better."

"Answer me something now- if you're a vampire...how come you're not dead in the sun? And...I taste garlic in this soup..."

Vlad smiled, again a child-like, endearing smile. His hair was darker, peppered in brown and gray, and he had far less wrinkles than the night before. He looked like a man in his forties. "Those are old wives' tales about vampires. In fact it's really by accident that the human race discovered us. The creatures they thought were vampires for centuries were simply bloated corpses, swollen with gas from their own blood. The myths they invented about us were however, eerily similar to what we truly are.

"We indeed are children of darkness. A pervasive darkness, the kind that snuffs out the light, like too much wind blowing out a candle. When vampires are born after their human death, we are like children. Driven by our instincts to feed, to gorge, to slake our thirst. We have no concept of right or wrong. We are like lions- monsters in the minds of their prey, but in reality neither evil nor good. Just surviving.

"As we grow, after hundreds of years, our moral understanding sharpens a little. We become like adolescents, confused, depressed. Some of us become so appalled at our nature that we commit suicide. Many of us fell to that end. I believe I have matured, in my hundreds of years, quicker than any other vampire. I have chosen to punish myself instead. To attend funerals of strangers, to walk about in the daytime because although it doesn't kill us, it is difficult to bear the light. When I do feed, I prefer to taste the curdled, vile blood of the wicked. It is not sweet like innocent blood. However, innocent blood is often spilled by my ravenous pangs of hunger, a charge for which I should perish.

"But I am the last one, and the curse forbids the death of the last one. This embodiment of evil must persist one way or another. I am doubly punished. When I starve, I may starve for months without dying. Then I have to feed again, abhorrently. I hate myself Miss Lucy, like you would not imagine."

Lucy's cell phone began to ring. "It is that Charlie Raines again, Miss Lucy. He called three times while you were yet sleeping. Once I answered it, telling him I was a friend and that you were sick. Please do not let him come by. I will kill him, and I do not wish to."

Lucy looked down at her vibrating mobile, reached for it and answered. "Hello? Yes, hi Charlie. No, that's an old family friend that surprised me with a house visit, but he's gone now. No, Charlie, you can't come by, I'm very sick. I know I sound pretty bad, and that's how I feel. I'm sure it's contagious, and I care about you. I don't want you to come by until I feel better. Maybe in a few days?" She looked to Vlad. He nodded solemnly. "Ok Charlie, good bye. Listen. I love you."

She sat up, already with more color in her cheeks. "This is delicious soup. Is there any more?"

"Why of course, I made an entire pot. Your body is probably working overtime to create more red blood cells. Chicken stock helps."

She took the new bowl and lapped it up greedily. "My head doesn't hurt as much anymore. Tell me more about you. This is the most interesting thing that ever happened to me, I hope you know that." Her mind was still on some other astral plane, as if shaking off an LSD high. Her flesh was tingling from her head to her toes, and she could feel an unmistakable wetness between her legs. She laughed as she said, "The difference between life and death is moisture."

"What?"

"Nothing. So tell me more."

"There is only pain to tell. I have gotten close to people, only to destroy them. I have met my soul-mate and killed her, by my reckoning, five times in five of her lifetimes. My story is a long one, but it is coming to an end. I thought I could rid myself of this evil by entering a monastery. Surrounding myself with good people with sacred purpose.

For a time it worked, but I grew so thirsty, so empty that I found I could not control my actions, no matter how hard I tried. This malevolence cannot be killed and so my spirit cannot be freed. For almost the past year I have been living at the monastery near the graveyard surrounded by rotting cadavers. The monks that took me in were all slaughtered in one feeding frenzy. I have learned to pray for the souls of my victims. And my children."

"That's not a bad story. I'm not sure if you follow television or movies, but vampires are everywhere. Now would be the best time to come out of the closet and into the light. Maybe you should tell your story. People can donate their blood to you, so you won't have to kill anymore." She yawned. "If they make a movie that would be cool too. Might make a lot of money." Her eyes shut as sleep took hold of her again. As Vlad commanded by a piercing glare. He took the opportunity to sleep himself, appearing dead to any outsider. They both awoke at night. He looked far younger than even before. She was less pale and color had mostly returned to her cheeks.

"I had the most amazing dreams, Vlad. I dreamed I was flying through the night at tremendous speeds, and I was hunting...something, or someone. There was a thrill, an ecstasy there. I remember looking up at the moon and feeling its fullness become mine. It felt so good to have such power!"

"I fear you may be changing already. You seem to be falling to the temptations of the vampire without even a struggle."

She closed her eyes. "I've never given myself so freely to anything. It feels so good. Holy crap, it feels so good." She quickly removed her nightgown and underwear. "I want you to take me and make love to me." She arose from her bed as her breasts bobbed in counter-motion to her movements. "You can have me, Mr. Drake. All of me. I know you want me, you wanted me since the very first time you saw me, at my dad's funeral. And for some reason Mr. Drake, since I met you in the garden, all I've wanted was to be consumed by you, devoured by you. Come take me. Come. Take. Me."

"That was no garden, Miss Lucy. We met in the cemetery."

"It was a garden, Mister Drake, where all kinds of rancid things grow into beauty and life. People are the seeds that lie dormant so that someday there might be a full bloom. Come on Mr. Drake, eat me, drink me, take me."

They made love until nearly the break of dawn. Lucy remembered nothing about it, just the feeling of flight. She rode the waves of black light through the galaxy and returning before dawn, flooding the consciousness with streams of aurora. The stars were still out in abundance, about to be eradicated by the gluttonous luminescence of Sol spreading rumors of itself on the horizon.

"Good morning, star-shine." That is how it started. Or how it ended.

"That was amazing, Vlad."

"Yes Miss Lucy, I am full to the brim with happiness. For myself, I see a path to salvation. For you however I see a path to destruction. Do you know the myth that what you say and do when you are drunk is what you really felt while you were sober?

"It is the same with being a vampire. You are the same kind of person as vampire that you are as human. Lucy, you are ready to take, you are ready to give yourself to darkness, you are so lonely that you identify with me, and so seduced by power that you submit wholly before it. Miss Lucy, I told you before I had no intention of letting you live."

She began to lubricate once more. "Then kill me."

He sighed again and traced the contours of her shoulder with his finger. "I will not do that either, Miss Lucy. I am going to make you a vampire. I'm going to turn you. You will be my child. You will be my servant and I will be your master."

"Make me, Master Drake. And we can live together hunting each night for the rest of our lives, until the apocalypse rends our flesh from our bones, until judgment finds us both guilty and we serve in hell together, in adjacent prison cells."

"Poor Miss Lucy, you are become deranged. The taste you had was too much. I want you to know, before you no longer remember, that I truly am sorry, as I have said before. But I am tired, and quite ready to go. Turn your neck, Lucy." She turned her neck to him, obligingly. Her carotid artery showed a rapid pulse, a pulse of excitement he could see with extraordinary vision. He bit into her and drank, briefly considering whether to drain her fully and save her from damnation.

But he could not for his own sake do that. He began to mumble a dark prayer, an evil chant, one that every vampire remembers, for birth is the most traumatic and memorable experience a vampire has. Lucy became cold, pale, and was in a fit of pain and anger. She began to wretch uncontrollably and her gums began to retract and bleed as her upper canines extended. Her breaths went from slow and deep to quick and shallow as the final stages of shock set in. She struggled for breath, thrashing about like a fish out of water until finally she was still, and her human form passed away.

She lay upon her bed, dead for some minutes, before she began to scream and snap her teeth at Vlad. He held her down with all of his strength but he could not keep her from his throat. She drank his blood in large gulps before she spit it out like poison. "What have you done to me?!" He fought her until she stopped fighting him back. The strength left her body and she became limp. Turning her face to him she said, "Why didn't you just kill me? This is not like what I felt before. This is...this is emptiness. I can't breathe! Oh my god, I'm not breathing!"

"Shh, Miss Lucy. You have been through a lot. And so have I. By drinking my blood you have completed the ritual. Now you are fully under my control. Since you have regained your senses, I should add the stipulation that you are reluctantly, under my control."

He looked again like a decrepit old man, very near death himself. "Who is your master, Miss Lucy?"

She attempted to cry but had no tears, had no moisture. "Y-you...are. You are my master, my tormenter, my devil. May your soul be on fire for the rest of eternity." She heaved in dry sobs. "You took my life."

"And your soul, Miss Lucy. And I deserve to die. Lucy, I command you to kill me."

Lucy became horrified, her dry eyes wide open. "No, no, no, please no."

"Yes. I have suffered long enough on this earth. I have spent near a century trying to atone and did nothing but commit more sins against everything holy in this blessed world. It shall go no further for me. Now it is your burden, which you took freely of your own will. Kill me."

Her right hand automatically plunged into Vlad's chest and wrenched out his heart. As she disconnected him from his earthly shackles, a faint child-like smile swept over his face. She kept his dead body under her bed and promised herself never to kill. He was a reminder. She spent days and nights walking her own house, haunting it like an apparition. After four days her house phone rang. She picked it up.

It was Charlie. "Hello? Lucy? Hellloooo?"

Some faint sounds on the other end, a vain attempt to sound like breathing. "Charlie, I don't know how to tell you this." A long pause.

"What, honey, what is it?"

"I don't love you anymore. I've been cheating on you with David, Tanya's boyfriend. He's on his way over now. It's not fair to keep lying to you. Please don't contact me again, for your own good. You are so much better than me." The doorbell rang. "Right on time. Good-bye Charlie. I love you."

Lucy was dressed in what became her trademark look, a white, flowing nightgown and tousled black hair.

The doorbell rang again. She slowly wafted to the door and opened it. A tall man in a dark shirt and dark pants walked in. He was carrying a briefcase and had a clean, trimmed black beard. "I came as soon as I got your text. I left a bunch of clients up in the air. You said this was life or death?"

She walked and put herself between him and the door. Smiling with as much joy as she could muster, she removed her gown, exposing her breasts. "Woah, Lucy, I don't understand, what's going...on...why now?"

"Because it's life or death, David. Look at my lips. Look here." She traced a circle around both her areolas. "What color are they?"

David decided his day at the office would be a wash. He smiled, a cocky smile that spoke volumes, as if he knew he'd eventually have her, but was surprised at the timing. "Well they're like, purplish, I guess."

She nodded. "Mm-hmm, and they're usually quite pink. That means I'm not getting enough circulation. That's life-or-death, David."

He pretended to inspect her dilemma. "Hmm, I see I see. Well, let me warm them up for you." Before he could do anything, she grabbed his hand and placed it on her left breast.

"Oh my god!! Lucy, you're freezing! This is not normal, you need to call an ambulance or something!"

Lucy smiled a child-like smile. "Would you say it's as cold as a witch's tit?" She then began to laugh uncontrollably and bit into David's flesh with delight. He yelled and screamed and kicked and cried. As vampires go, her appetite was meager and she left him alive after a few pulls. Once her thirst was nearly sated, some semblance of humanity returned.

"I don't know much about religion, David. But I do know you're a cheater. I know you've hurt people in the past. I know so much about you from tasting your bitter blood. But if there is any divine justice, I'd imagine getting killed by a demon frees you from your sins. Why should the darkness win, after all? Think of this as my gift to you. Now you'll go to Heaven." She finished him off quickly and dragged him below her bed. Engorged with blood, she decided to sleep.

Lucy opened the curtains. Her lover was gone, dissipated into a mist of forgetfulness, like the residue of a lost dream. She walked over to the shower, nude, making red footprints on her Italian white-and-black marble tile. She scalded herself with the hot water for a half hour as the blood drained into the plumbing.

In the past she did yoga, spent hours in meditation as one of her friends taught her. Breathe deeply in, and exhale at a certain pace. Focus on breathing and breathing only, and the mind reveals wonders. Renounce the ambient noise. "Lucy..."

The voice snapped her from her reverie. A voice from behind her front door.

"Lucy, it's Charlie, open up. Come on, let's talk about this." He knocked on the door several times. Lucy looked into the mirror and saw nothing. She could not identify herself; she lacked a soul. She looked down. What she did have was a body. And it was hungry.

"Be right there, Charlie, I'm just getting out of the shower."

"-gray..."

"-gray..."

Did someone just say something, or was that a dream? Everyone's stirring, awakening, thinking they heard the same thing. Forgetting exactly what it was. No longer caring what it might have been. Tendons and ligaments straining clumsily. It's a slow arousal, as if the muscles were re-learning their more coordinated movements, as if their nerves are learning to fire once again. Eight people, none of which knows any other person, all of which are confused and unamused.

The voices flit between "where am I?" and "who are you?", "what happened?" and variations of each question. The questions rotate from one person to another, no one particularly interested in answering or listening to a response. They are four men and four women, adorned in gray vestments, hooded robes but nothing else. The walls are gray, the floor is gray, and the light that seems to have no discernible source is gray.

The elliptical stone table in the middle of the room is gray and large, as are the stone seats. There are stone cups at each position of the table. The room in which the four men and four women find themselves is very large and windowless. There are heavy-looking stone doors at each end of the room, half a football field apart.

After some inarticulate discussion, the group quiets down and settles in. Curiosity overrides panic and confusion, and they decide to sit at the table to talk and perhaps plan an escape. By the look of the doors, they said, they couldn't just turn the knobs and walk out. The oldest among them expressed his wish to find a viable set of solutions to their dilemma before they run out of air. Yet another marveled at how there should be any light at all in this solid, gray, windowless room without any visible light source.

There were eight chairs at the table, three on one side, three on the other, and two chairs at each head. Without planning to, one side of the table and one head chair was occupied by the women, and the other was occupied by the men. They were stark silent for what seemed like an hour. On the table were small, business-looking cards, face down. They were placed one at each chair.

Out of curiosity the men and women turned the cards over. The women's cards had printed on them, in fine calligraphy, Grace, Hope, Love, and Destiny. One for each woman. The men's cards said East, West, North, and South. Fresh silence sprouted from the group. "How did anyone know that we'd sit where we sat? How come all the women got women's names?" asked the woman who sat at the place held by the name Grace.

The man at the head, North according to his card, answered her. "None of this experience is commonplace; none of this fits anything we're used to. It's not in any way normal. We're going to have to make sense of it by adjusting, and by being calm. I suggest we don't address each other by our real names. Maybe we were given these ones for a reason. Are you all comfortable in having a frank discussion?"

Moans and grunts in assent. Then again marvelous silence. It was out of place, and yet each stranger felt the compulsion to be quiet, to bow out of their opinion to the next piece of insight by someone else. "Well I guess I'll start talking," said North. "I'm sure the rest of you have a cloudy, uncertain feeling about you right now, just as I do. I'm unsure of how I got here, and I'm hard pressed to recall the last thing that happened to me before waking up. Still, I think we have a good chance of figuring this out. I think we're probably all connected somehow. Or we have something in common among all of us. We need to be straightforward and speak up if that's the case. It's not just that we feel like hostages. We might very well be hostages."

"Is anyone here in a secret society or anything like that? Freemasons, Skulls, anything?" That was East.

Lots of unenthusiastic no's following. "Oh. We'll I'm a Knight of Columbus myself."

"Is anyone here Catholic?" asked Grace. Four were Catholic- three of the women and one of the men (East).

"That can't be the similarity. By looking at everyone, I'd say we all have different ethnic backgrounds too. Maybe, maybe we all know each other...or maybe we all have a common friend of some sort."- West spoke up.

Grace replied, "I think the chances of that are really remote. One of us would at least know someone else here. I mean it's possible, or maybe we could all have known the same person at some point. Someone we all picked on who hatched himself a plot to get us all together under one roof, scare the hell out of us, and then...kill us or something? Mm. Come to think of it, no. The answer has to be simpler."

Hope asked, "I'm from New York. Is anyone else from New York?"

There was an explosion of agreement, followed by fervent yeses and explanations. "Well I was born in San Diego but I moved to New York five years ago." "Well I was born in New York but I went to college in Connecticut and I just recently came back." And so on.

Hope looked pleased with asking the right question. There was a connection. But then she looked troubled, her brow furrowing, blue eyes pensive. "So we were all in New York before we got...here, wherever this is. Maybe West is right. Maybe someone that we're all connected to has it in for all of us."

"But who?" asked North. "And for what? I never really did all that much wrong to anybody. I've never cheated on anyone, and I've never stolen any girls from anyone else. Never even cheated on a test. I was always a quiet kid who'd get picked on, so I didn't really bully anybody. I have almost no family left, just my mom, and we're on good terms. If we're all at fault for something, then what the hell did I do, in particular?"

"Oh come on, North. No one in the world is an angel. By the time you become old enough to vote, you probably did a million things wrong."- West

"That's no reason for anyone to lock us up in this hideous place. I mean do you realize how much trouble anyone would have had to go through to retrieve us, and bring us here, and somehow make sure that we all woke up at the same time? Let alone prepare a table before us with weird place settings. It's absolutely insane, and we should all be very afraid."- Destiny

"Intellectually I get it, it's strange. But for some reason I'm not spooked. I mean, usually I'm more or less a scaredy-cat in every way, but I'm feeling...okay right now. Like we just need to reason this out and it'll all be okay. I have a feeling that it'll all be alright." - Hope.

"Yeah. Maybe we were all drugged with the same juju. I feel the same way. Like a teeny tiny voice inside my head is panicked to utter terror, but 99% of the rest of me is fine. But still, there should be a sense of urgency about figuring a way out. We should talk some more, try to understand why we're here, but if we can't be in agreement we should probably look into seeing ourselves out."- South.

West stood up and began to walk around, not searching anywhere in particular, but glancing in all directions. He put his right finger to his lips and whispered, "If this is all a set-up, it's pretty elaborate, well thought out. The execution is phenomenal. Well planned. Hmm. If I personally were to do something like this to eight people I don't like, I'd have some kind of surveillance on them, watching them squirm, listening to them try to reason things out, maybe giving some hint away and observe them...that is, if it were me. And if I were a sick person to begin with. Before we say another word to each other, we have to scope this large...enormous, room out for bugs and cameras."

South also stood up and went towards North. He guided him back to his seat with his eyes and a kind gesture. He didn't whisper but instead projected his voice, "If any single person or group of people are to blame, then they must have thought about us trying to escape. And they'd probably know that we'd know we were being watched and listened to. So they'd have accounted for it somehow. This is sort of alarming, because if that's the case as it seems to be, we'd be really hard pressed to outwit our captors."

"There's another possibility," whispered Love, almost inaudibly. As if it were rehearsed, everyone bowed their heads down to the stone behemoth they were sitting at. They knew what she was getting at. They thought it on the inside. They just couldn't find the language to say it out loud. After what seemed like minutes but was closer to five seconds, West rhetorically asked, "What's that?"

"We're dead."

East replied, "I don't know how to go about proving that we're not dead. Other than actually killing one of us and if that happens, well, the survivors can be sure we're still alive."

"We can't be dead. Can we?" asked Destiny. "I think we'd know if we were dead. Even though, it, sort of makes sense. Like we could be in Purgatory or something. I always imagined Purgatory as a drab, cold place."

"Yeah, I do kind of feel weird. Everything about this place is other-worldly. The light coming from nowhere, the grayness, the mellow kind of way everyone feels."- Hope.

North chimed in, "It's some sick person who's probably getting off on this, on watching us all panic, who's probably gonna kill us a little later, and then we'll really be in Purgatory. We have to get the hell out of here. Even if we're dead, what are we gonna do, stay in this stupid room for all Eternity?"

It was apparent to everyone else that North was their leader, or at least their mediator, the person in the group whose ideas were going to have more weight than the others. "Okay, let's put this to a vote. Who wants to look for a way out before we do anything else?"

They all raised their right hands. "Do any of the men here think they can move those stone doors?" Grace asked. None of the men thought they could, but the group agreed, all eight of them, to try. They walked to what they thought of as the east end of the room (the side of the room adjacent to the place on the table that read East) and went to one of the huge stone doors there. It was less a door, and more a stone slab, resting on the ground and blocking an exit. All eight of them tried to grip the sides and pull, but the stone wouldn't budge.

They marveled at how they could even have arrived in such a place. Who let them in, a Giant? Who moved the behemoth stones? Maybe they were mechanized? Someone asked. Perhaps one could open those doors with the click of a button on a remote control?

Well, they weren't going to stay there and philosophize the possibilities. They decided they wanted instead to push the stone rather than pull it, and see if it'd move that way. Pushing required no awkward grip. Going even further, North added, they all should push on one side of the stone, so that their strength is concentrated in one area. It's possible that the door isn't quite as heavy as they think. But unless each gave it their hardest push, they knew they'd never be able to get out of there.

It worked. The large stone moved a few inches. "Now, let's push on the other side, so we keep it level," commanded South. And they did. Push after push, grueling strain after grueling strain, they finally managed to move the stone block out of the doorway so they could walk through it. What they found on the other side was a bit baffling. And of course disappointing.

It was a large room, the exact same size as theirs. A carbon copy, in fact. Except for one important, singular difference. There was only one doorway, the one that they walked through. On the other side of the room, there was no way out whatsoever. There were eight seats in this room, and face-down business cards at each position. They could guess what was on the cards. Probably North, South, East, and West, and Grace, Hope, Love, and Destiny. They quickly decided they weren't going to sit again and rest.

For one thing, through all the effort it took them to push the stone, none of them felt any weaker or sorer for it. Hope suggested that they really were meant to hash something out. She predicted every door they open will lead to a large room with a stone table in the middle of it, and eight seats gathered around. East pointed out how little fatigue everyone had, and said there was no reason not to push every heavy stone they saw until they got to the last one. There had to be a way out because by simple logic, there had to be a way in.

"Maybe the way in is different than the way out. Maybe there's only an entrance, no exit", suggested Grace. Destiny, drawing new strength from the possibility of leaving, stated that the best way to find anything out is to try. And secret passages must be an option, in case they find a dead end. Only after they've exhausted all their options could they go back to their original room and declare the issue totally and utterly hopeless.

And so they did as they decided they should. They returned to their original room and opened the opposite door. From there, they entered room after room after room, until they got to a particular room which was slightly different. Here there were four "doors", one on each side of the great rectangular room, and again there were eight seats placed around a great stone table, on which were placed also eight cards. They propounded the idea of an infinite series of rooms, and agreed that the only way that'd be possible was if they really were dead. And in that case, all they really had was time on their hands. They decided to go two by two, one male and one female.

They went in pairs of North-Love, South-Grace, East-Hope, West-Destiny. Each subsequent room that the pairs of strangers entered had only one entrance and one exit. After four hours, East and Hope arrived to a room that had one entrance and two exits. They decided to split, to save time. They wished each other well. Hope was initially frightened but overcame her fear. East kept following rooms that had only one exit. As just one person, the movement of the stone blocks took twice as long as with two or three people. East wondered how the others were faring. The lone women may be having problems with the stones. Then again, maybe the other pairs didn't split up. Then again if they were dead, maybe spiritual strength counted for far more than physical strength.

It took him about another hour to reunite with Hope, quite by accident. There was a room with three doors and they happened to arrive at the same time. They then stepped into the other door together, not saying a word. They were stoic like souls in limbo. The room they entered together was little like the others. It too had a stone table, but there were no seats and no place cards. There were also windows, and four doors. The windows were shut with wooden shutters, locked from the outside. The stone directly across the room from them was moving.

People were trying to enter. People were trying to enter from the stone to their adjacent right as well. But no one was entering from the stone door to their left. The windows were on that side of the wall. North and Love, and South and Grace came from the stone door opposite East and Hope. They must have met up at some point, Hope divined, almost as if it weren't obvious. To their right West and Destiny entered. They all looked at that last door in amazement. Their time together had been short but they all felt an eerie closeness, a bond with each other like they had with no one else, liked they'd known each other longer.

"When we get out of here, let's all get a beer together!" exclaimed West. "Maybe tomorrow night, I'm finally starting to feel tired," was Hope's reply. With one last synchronized motion they all tried moving the last stone. It either was or seemed, heavier than the others. All at once exhaustion was setting in on the eight. Slowly the door gave in to their combined will. It opened enough for a single adult to walk through at a time. And they did, single file. First North, then the others. They could hardly stand. Destiny began to wobble in her steps, and looked around at what she saw in something that approached amazement. "Everything looks so...gray..."

Did someone just say something, or was that a dream?

Vespers of the Moon

Around the cathedral the vespers speckle the nearly-night sky with a phantom glow. At the apex between night and sunrise, an unnoticeable difference equivalent to the acceleration of light officiates the changeover.

A thin film of silver delineates the lower sky from the upper, the lighter hue of blue hugging the sun as it sets from the darker hue above, an opaque essence waiting to claim the entire sky. I trudge through the fresh compacted snow, giddy, carried by angels. I head happily to the Rectory. Father Figli told me he'd be there, every day if he had to, to be there in case I had to see him. And I did have to see him, right away. It was a real emergency, whether it was Christmas or not.

I had been a regular for confession every Saturday at 4:30 and would come see the pastor during normal office hours. I was sick, a man afflicted, cursed by temptation, wrought by sin. Tangled and twisted into a monster, which is not how I was born. I was born innocent. I was baptized into Catholic sinless-ness.

Like most people I was born a good man, brought up by a good family. Over time, my habits began to change. My thoughts began to turn towards evil, malice and temptation. Towards the fantasies of killing, stealing, and coveting. I did not actually do everything I imagined- but given the unfettered chance, I probably would have. I got in deep with loan sharks, hit my wife – once, only once and lost her to divorce. And I drank. And drank. And drank.

Before my internal schisms, I was a smart guy. Not a wiseass, a smart person. But then at a certain age, my mind split into 4 million smaller, more scattered pieces. I became afflicted. Infected. For all intents and purposes I was hijacked by a demon. Control of my compulsions and actions were taken from me and I droned on for years as a zombie, driven only by the affliction, the growling hunger for chaos. The sin to which I was re-born, a second time, in a Satanic baptism, was total and obstinate.

One sin led to another and another. The need grew as I fed a growing appetite which was not mine. Each day I allowed myself just one taste of sin, whose din is melodic, scent is fragrant, and fleshy succulence is sweet. One is all it takes to condemn a mortal spirit, just one taste. Because one always begets many. My drinking led to my violence. My violence led to my divorce. My divorce led to other relationships, in which I'd been unfaithful to all.

If this reads like a confession, like an AA revelation, it's only because I had a lot of practice. My consultations with Monsignor were like therapy sessions, repairing my spirit as well as my mind.

Father Figli told me rather repeatedly that I should seek psychological redress. I would just as often deny needing it, certain in my stance that the Devil was plaguing me. And since the Devil was real, the cause was real, not psychological.

Father said that psychological things were also real. They weren't any smaller or less significant than a physical malady. He says there's no such thing as "it's all in your head"- but I don't believe that. So it doesn't apply. At any rate I was right about my demon. It broke up my wife and me. Forcibly removed my children. And I had proof. I was free from bondage, from dark servitude and the proof was in my hands, literally.

Father told me about the truest evil there was. "The worst evil is when you know better, but do something wrong anyway. A child commits a sin because they don't know. A mentally impaired person doesn't know. The worst evil is when you know, and you smile doing it. It's when you hurt the ones and things you love, on purpose. In a way, the worst evil is that which you do to yourself."

I can see it now. In about five minutes I'll reach the Rectory through this high, compact snow. Father will open the door when I rap on the metal knocking plate. He will smile, wearily as he always does.

I'll say, "I know, Father, I know. How frustrating it must be to be a priest, and deal with annoying sinners like myself." He'll politely laugh it off and say it was his job to do that. Then he'll ask me what I'm coming for this time. What sin would I like to confess, what advice would I be needing today? And I'd tell him, "Father I'm cured."

I'd explain how I spied the demon, whispering some unholy incantation over me as I was falling asleep, how he was about to curse my dreams. How I opened my eyes at that very moment and confronted him, a monster with a vacuous face, hunched stature and jaundiced eyes.

He vaguely resembled me, but only superficially. Within his somewhat translucent, wraith-like figure, was a dark tarry blackness churning at his core. It's this dripping, oozing substance which I could identify as the same living poison confabulating with me.

It pulsated with the same rhythm as my own heart. He had been pumping me with that poison all this time. I had become vindicated. Someone, something other than myself was infecting me. The things I was doing and the thoughts I was thinking were external. I am not at fault. But then, what could I do? What power did I have?

I'll tell Father.

I fought the monster to its death. We were still in my room, but oddly transported to another realm, a smoky nether world filled with a crimson glow. Within this hazy mist I felt a strange calm. Somehow I knew that this was my realm. Wherever we were then, it belonged to me.

With concentration, I drew a sword from the very air, a blade of steel and fire, with a hilt made just for my fingers. The demon had no chance, could not possibly have a chance in my realm.

As I thrust the sword into his black heart, I saw his face and it was mine. It was my devil. The fallen angel that sits on my left shoulder. The sinister one. Now slain, I could never hear his tempting call again.

As soon as I withdrew the blade from its thorax, it began to hemorrhage that same tarry blackness from the entry wound. It hissed and gasped and then died without fanfare. We returned to my room in a red flash and when I looked down, I saw its fallen corpse collapse in a puff of ashes. A metric ton lifted from my chest, and I was returned to freedom, unburdened and unbridled.

And I could thank Father Figli for the strength and the courage to take on that fight. I had to see him and thank him personally.

I know how I come off. Like I'm crazy, like I'm deranged, perhaps delusional, and I know my eyes bug out when I really get impassioned about something. That's off-putting. I know I get that way with Father, and I know on more than one occasion he's avoided seeing me when I come knocking at the rectory.

They know about me, they roll their eyes. The small, petite receptionist usually calls the Father right away instead of opening the door to my knocking. She replies "he's busy" from within and sometimes through the intercom.

When they do let me in, whether the door is already open because of other visitors, or there's a USPS delivery and they have to sign it, the small, petite receptionist is conveniently nowhere in sight and I have to wait a long time for the cowardly priest to give me ten minutes.

It offends me, but I have to remind myself just how it is that I come off to people. At any rate, I have pride in what I've done. This assassination of my demon, if nothing else, means I won't have to bother you any longer, Father Figli. That is, if you do me one favor. You need to keep its ashes in the church. It has to be in a holy place. Else it might reawaken. People, we go on food and water. It's hatred, envy, slime and sludge that feeds this demon.

I'm close. I thought I sensed the demon's purulence in the brisk air, hanging for a moment. I trudge through the snow up to the gate, which is locked. Aurulent streaks stream past the church minarets as the sun dissipates through the clouds. I walk around from the front of the church to the rectory. "Any time", Father said. He'd be here any time I'd need him. I need you now, Father.

But that was locked too. I rang the bell. I became flustered, I paced, I screamed, I...I... dropped the goddamn ashes.

I waited. Nothing. Down on the floor the black ashes started drifting away, particulate by particulate, the bulk still on the snow. I knocked using the old-fashioned door knockers. I yelled, "Father! I need to speak to Father! Sister Ann! Is anybody in there?" Nothing. I looked down again. More was drifting away on the wind.

Perhaps this concentrated evil will dissipate like a cloud, I thought. I composed myself for a minute. I looked forward, looked left and right. I looked down one more time.

Nothing.

The BlackJack Dealer

What deep eyes, she thought behind a veil of professional affect. Brown but profound, stark and intense. The man before her seemed a bit agitated at the moment but she could see that this was far from his normal demeanor. He looked like the kind of man that could stare down a bear unflinchingly or address the courts of his peers with persuasive conviction, in possession of a charm that cannot be learned or taught.

His voice would be solid, she thought. Sure of itself and proud of its timbre.

"H-hit me," he said, also tapping the eight of diamonds before him. And before the blackjack players took notice, she realized she was staring.

"Jack of clubs," she said. He had busted again, after wagering a hundred dollars on the hand. He still had chips left but they were steadily decreasing in number. His perspiration became noticeable and his discomfort was now paramount. The beads of sweat on his forehead were ready to roll down to his nose, stubbornly holding onto the edge. He took out a handkerchief to mitigate the moisture. To those observing the game, he looked like a normal blackjack player down on his luck, frustrated with the hand he was dealt.

To Geena Richard, the dealer, he looked severely distraught. It's only a game, she thought. He's way too into it. She chanced another look in his eyes for a glimmer of a second and in that instant he seemed to transmit his sense of urgency, his sense of danger, and his sense of utter hopelessness.

She had never seen that look on a man before in her life. Not even when she lived in New York where the world congregates, had she ever seen such a look of being completely, absolutely lost. And the expression did not suit him well. It made him look strangely beautiful, but sad.

He looked thinner than he was, like he was going to soon disapper. His manner was too slight for a person with such a large stature, and with features so refined, the lines on his face drawn like they were etched from an artist's charcoal. He had said no more than two words to her at a time, either "Hit me" or "Stay" but he affected her. Voices were never usually that strained. Never so pained as his.

She wondered whether she should tell management something was wrong with the man, but what would she say? Where's the proof? Maybe he sweats because he has glandular problems. Maybe he told his wife he was going for a walk but instead came down to gamble another few thousand. But hey, being a little dishonest to one's wife isn't against casino policy.

She looked at his hands. No ring. No watch, either, and no buckle on his belt. Maybe he was just a poor man trying to become a rich man. Maybe he was in danger of becoming a gambling addict. Addictiv behavior actually was against casino policy.

Looking at his winnings, it didn't seem as if he were very good at this. But blackjack is a game of both risk and luck. You need to take equal measures of both to win big. "Sir, are you sure you haven't had enough? It might be best to cash in those chips now."

He flashed her a polite, charming, sincere smile devoid of any worry, doubt or fear. "I think I'll keep playing. The law of averages has to kick in at some point. My chips haven't run out yet, you know. And you know what they say- It can't rain forever. But I thank you for your interest. On any other night I'd have taken your advice. Stick around. You might just save me yet."

In his next hand he was dealt a nine and a queen. Nineteen. "I'll stay, miss."

The man to his left scored an eighteen and the woman to his right a sixteen. The dealer had a visible eight and a hidden card. She hit and he won. "What's your name miss? It seems my luck's changing already. Maybe you can keep me company with some pleasant conversation."

"My name is Geena. And I'm sorry, at this casino we're not allowed to engage in too much small talk with our guests. Management is afraid it distracts us in case someone cheats." She then winked at him, but she didn't know why. He saw it and broke a quick grin.

"My name's Andrew. Andrew Contini." Looking down and away from her in a voice so small she didn't hear it, he said, "And tonight I'm playing for my life."

The next hand he got a twenty and won. The dealer busted. He always bet a hundred, each hand. In chips he had something like two thousand dollars' worth. The next round he got blackjack, scoring him two hundred for the hand. Geena found herself quiescently flirting, quite against management policy. "Are you sure you're not cheating on this game?" Of course that was impossible; she was a pro and there were cameras everywhere. The question was more flirt than serious query.

"Miss Geena, my life is in your hands. You can condemn me or set me free. But I swear I'm not cheating." He winked at her, which made her feel warm and guilty inside, like an elementary schoolgirl that has just discovered her reflection in a cute young boy's eyes. She wasn't much older than that, a college dropout herself.

He tapped the table. "Like I said, you're giving me good luck. The kindness of strangers has some kind of eerie power to it."

At eleven-thirty a very tall and wide man entered the game room in a black suit, tie and shoes. He also wore thin black sunglasses that preposterously managed to veil his identity. It wouldn't have surprised anyone to learn he was an undertaker. In many ways, Andrew supposed, he was. The death business is very lucrative. The man nodded at Andrew almost imperceptibly. Andrew nodded back coolly.

He went on to win some, and lose a couple, and then win some more. It was ten minutes to midnight and he seemed to have been completely lost to any temporal cues. He was immersed in the game, in which he now won a thousand more dollars. He knew blackjack was all about luck, but he believed in the law of averages. It can't rain forever.

It can't be sunny forever either. He looked to the big clock on the wall. Five minutes to twelve. He counted his earnings. "Not enough," he said to himself, however loud enough so the dealer had heard it. His eyes met with those of the large man who was waiting at the door, hands folded over his lap.

"Well Miss Geena, I think I'm going to take your advice after all and cash in my chips. Thanks for breaking management policy for me." He smiled a weary, difficult smile, and left. The dealer looked at him go with some unsettledness. He was fun, she thought. Maybe he'll swing by tomorrow to play a round or two.

Geena Richard was comfortably tucked into her bed and tumbling into a dream when a far way off in the Nevada desert a shot was fired. It was closely followed by the inarticulate sound of a body hitting the ground. The next day Geena Richard woke up forgetting all about the last night's dreams and yesterday's gamblers. She got ready and went to another day of work.

The Ultimate Vampire

Chapter 1

Different predators have different methods for capturing their prey. Some stalk like lions. Some chase for miles like wolves, some strike with poison like snakes. And others lie in wait, patiently expecting that their quarry come to them. Like spiders. Or me.

At least, this was my method tonight. For tonight I was hungry and could no longer keep my yearning at bay. Sometimes I stalked, sometimes I chased. But tonight all I had energy to do was wait.

Over a hundred years of life granted me unnatural affinities beyond the usual mortal coils. Speed, agility, strength. But it comes with a cost, paid in blood.

Though the taste was bitter, I drank the blood not of innocents, but of the guilty. Bad people only. The method by which I came to this brooding death had not taken away my quintessential humanity, and I cherish that more than a meal.

I promised myself that I would never taste innocent blood, although I could smell its sweet decadence in people I would often pass on the street. As time goes on however, less people have this distinctive aroma, a disease of the new world perhaps. One might call it an affliction. Fewer and fewer good people about means a greater and greater unbearable stench for me.

But in a world of skunks, I must go after the worst of them. It is my choice. Though it was not my choice to die, it was my choice to become this monster afterward. And monsters need not indulge their hunger, for then they truly lose the small strips of humanity they have left.

Tonight, the spider is its own bait. I wore my gold pocket-watch and my best tuxedo, although it would later have to be dry cleaned. My bow tie was silk and my black shoes shone like stars. If you didn't want to rob me, you'd at least have had the decency to laugh at me. Which some folks did.

All dressed up and nowhere to go, except the bad parts of town. Drug alleys that often become shooting ranges where lives are target practice for evil men. Things are greater commodities out there than people. The currency of men is money, always has been.

But in order to dangle yourself in front of the right flies, you need to go deeper into the den of despair. Where the streets become darker, more shadowy. Where the smart ones go to bed early and keep the lights out.

It made me laugh how frightened victims sometimes accidentally stumble into this den, to become prey to these fruit flies. And contrasted to me, drizzled in nectar, willing to be predated upon, I must wait quite a while before a rival spider stirs.

I almost called it a night before a group of thugs decided to approach me. Praise the night gods. They were a diverse gang, two white men, two black, three Hispanic and one Asian. One of the Hispanic men was the leader.

"You lost, old man? Looks like you're in the bad part of town. Where you looking to go?" Unfortunately for me, the man was serious about helping me. The group didn't have the right smell. There were both sweet and earthy tones, with none of the acrid vinegar I often detect. The man and his friends were actually concerned for my well-being.

I began to mumble. "N-no, I'm waiting for someone. I'm fine, thank you."

Behind me, a new man's voice came into clear focus. He was fat and bald with a spiked neck collar. He grabbed me in a big, hard bear hug. "Thank you guys for finding him. This is my uncle. Bobby. Isn't that right, Uncle Bobby?" He turned to me and in that moment I could smell his dank breath. Just right.

Chapter 2

I was sated but unfulfilled, filling the empty void inside me with more emptiness. The bitterness with more bitterness. The man, whoever he was, who intended to rob me had an accomplice. Usually I would spare one, but this time I was hungry and had both.

I undertook the morbid task of disposing of the wretched bodies. When you're a vampire, the sewer systems are one of your few best friends. Though I began the night as an elderly man, I ended it barely scratching my thirties. Fullness came back to my cheeks, buoyancy returned to my muscle tone, my skin perked up. It had been a long time since my previous meal.

I try to eat few and far between. I am an affront to my own virtues but alas, I am driven by necessity and not by reason. I don't have that luxury.

This den of depravity is a breeding ground for rats and roaches. New York, 1983... I'm not sure which is to blame, the place or the year. As harsh as it might sound to sensitive ears, I severed all limbs and decapitated the heads from the torsos. I deposited the various parts in different waterways- the Hudson river for the heads, the East River for the limbs, and the Atlantic Ocean for the torsos. If they find the limbs and are able to take fingerprints, they'd probably see that I did this city a service. What they'd likely find about the victims would be a rap sheet yards long.

They would remain cold cases destined for a deep freeze. Even with dark souls, I wasn't heartless. I understood cerebrally that every day they would have lived would have been an opportunity to change and become better. I removed their ability to recognize that potential, small as it was to begin with.

The sun, which was setting when I began my trap, was just coming back up from the other side of the world at 5-something AM. Its warmth touched my now more-youthful face and I closed my eyes to drink it in. At least I had the sun. For now.

I began my walk back from the pier overlooking the Hudson, to my apartment on the West Side. No one would recognize me since they'd been seeing an old man coming and going for the past couple of years. It was time to move, I thought.

As I turned a corner a few blocks away from my tenement, I noticed a car slowly following me. I didn't realize it at first, but it slowed down as I did, and sped up as I did. So I stopped and it stopped. This didn't cause me the kind of spine-trembling fear that it would have if I were alive.

And, aptly enough, the car was a black hearse with tinted windows.

Chapter 3

"Can I help you?" I asked the American car. In response, the ignition turned off with a click and the lights went out. The engine sputtered slightly as the well-worn death carriage was perhaps showing its age.

"You're going to get a ticket leaving this thing in the middle of the street," I advised the driver of the hearse. I was standing my ground. Against who or what, I did not yet know.

The driver's door opened slowly, and the driver exited methodically, unhurried. The man wore a black trench coat with an old-timey gangster's hat. It would have been a frightening scene. The morning light had not yet illuminated everything, and no one else was around.

He tugged on leather gloves as he walked towards me. Perhaps he thought it was a threatening gesture. I was not one for much fear. Also, the man was quite short, maybe 5'3" at most.

"Can I help you?" I repeated more sternly, as the short man arrived within arm's length.

His only reply was to stab me in the neck through one quick motion, which didn't draw much blood. You need to have a beating heart in order to really bleed. Indeed the biggest difference between life and death is a little bit of moisture. An interesting thought.

Returning from the brief memory of a long-dead acquaintance, I pulled out the knife. I didn't want to kill the man, and it was a good thing that I didn't have to. Vampires have something called a "charm", which they use to hypnotize humans. That is, vampires all used to have that ability. Before what they called in their circles "The Great Affliction". I don't run in their circles, nor have I ever.

I began the task of charming the man but was immediately stymied. It didn't work. This person was odd. I couldn't smell his blood. Also, he was smiling at me.

"I'm not worried about getting a ticket, Drake," he said, continuing the previous conversation as if it hadn't been interrupted by attempted murder. He wiped the knife on a towel and sheathed it back under his coat. My stab wound had just healed of its own accord.

"If I were inclined to be worried about police, it would be that they'd find the body of the funeral director in the back. But then again, a body in a hearse- who'd think to question it anyway?"

Although I could not smell him, he smelled me. He took some deep breaths and closed his eyes. It reminded me of just earlier, when I'd greeted the waking sun.

"Just had breakfast, huh? That's good. It's good to be able to eat when you're hungry. Wouldn't you say so?"

Before I could kindly tell him to bugger off, I found myself whooshed away to the back of the hearse. This person was fast. Very fast. Faster than me. That could only mean one thing. That he was an endangered species. Someone whose kind I hadn't had contact with since the 1960s. Someone who's survived in the shadows for thousands of years.

Another vampire.

Chapter 4

It was a long time since I'd known fear. It's an odd feeling to return to after decades. You react to it with surprise, and a little bit of humor. "Where are we going?" I asked as I looked out the window to see that we were crossing the bridge into Brooklyn.

"What does it matter?" he replied frankly. Indeed. What did it matter?

The funeral director wasn't in the casket as would have been customary or dignified. He was lying haphazardly next to me with his throat ripped out. There was still some blood in him, dead as he was. A small snack. Breakfast, perhaps.

But I couldn't allow myself the taste. He had the scent of a good man, and as a rule I avoid indulging my vampire self in order to spite this irreverent half of me.

So I let him lie there, let his blood slowly harden to a crust. I felt sorry for the man. He reminded me of so many funeral directors that I have known over the years. Most are genuine in their consolation, and are a thoroughly aggrieved lot of people.Throughout my time in this shell, I have been to many funerals. I used to attend the services of those I'd killed and devoured. The ritual comforted me in my sorrow.

What an insane thing, to offer condolences to the family members of your victims. What a sick, ugly thing. Sadder still, the times that the friends and family would be wholeheartedly unaware of the darkness within their loved one. Often, it wasn't only something that I smelled. It was something that I witnessed. That I saw and heard and was privy to.

I'd seen secret killers and robbers. Criminals of all hues. Criminals loved by their own. Touted as good men. And good women. I looked down at my hands, ashamed as I let the memories waft in through the barely open window.

Your sins weigh you down. They rot you from the inside, and long before you've stopped breathing. Like this poor usher of the dead before me. There wouldn't be much fanfare for him. The best that could happen would be a ritual in which he wasn't present.

As I looked at the pall of his long face, I grew sad. I envied him. To die a good man. I would never get the chance. Self hatred is good for one thing, and perhaps one thing only. It readily puts a halt on fear. The short, tanned man at the helm of the hearse revealed no secrets in his ancient, carved face. He might as well have been my taxi driver, or my chauffeur. More likely, he was my undertaker. Our undertaker, I thought as I looked at the funeral director.

Should he seek to release me from a bond I don't wish to possess...then what's to fear?

"So I'm going to ask again. Where are we going?"

Chapter 5

"We're going to a recently abandoned factory in Carroll Gardens. A very out of the way kind of place where I've holed up recently." He turned to look at me without a care about traffic. "Don't expect tea."

The entire neighborhood was a ghost town. There were abandoned lots, warehouses, and factories. I half-expected to see a ball of tumbleweed floating by.

The man brought the body of the funeral director with him over his right shoulder. When we walked into the enormous place, devoid of any machinery, he threw the body down unceremoniously and turned the light on.

I made no visible reaction, but I think the man knew the effect of what I'd seen. There was a pile of perhaps 30 or 40 bodies in varying states of decomposition, all with their throats ripped out. The bodies were one thing, and the solid lake of blood below them was another. It was the blood more than anything that unseated me.

"Inedible morsels, all of them. Disgusting vermin." He spat on the floor and then paused. He looked at me sideways for a minute. I let him. He was far more powerful than I. If I ran, he'd catch me. He moved quicker than lightning and bound me to a chair. My wrists and ankles were bound in silver. I could tell it was silver, because I immediately felt my strength being sapped.

Although most myths about vampires are wrong, it is true that silver makes us sick. It might not kill us, but it does leave us rather useless. I began to growl and groan like a wounded animal. He walked around me in a circle like a detective in an interrogation. Or at least the way it looks on TV. It still didn't have much of an effect. I'd wanted to die for a long time, but that was too selfish to desire. I was accursed to meander about in the world between death and life. My only sustenance would be the foulness of other accursed souls. It's what I deserved.

"I haven't seen a single vampire in at least thirty years," he accused.

"Neither have I," I roared back. But I immediately softened. It brought back memories of that last vampire that I knew and how humbly he'd passed away. He was the best friend I'd ever known.

"Do you know why our kind has been so rare lately? Or have you been in a mausoleum for the past century?" His face was old-looking and worn. He reminded me of what I imagined ancient Egyptians looked like. He could have been King Tut's vampire brother. His shorter brother.

"The sickness." I winced. I hadn't spent a lot of time bound in silver.

"In our world we called it 'The Great Affliction' or 'The Great Dying'. And it is the single most destructive chapter in our history." He stopped walking briefly and looked down at the ground. "It is most likely the last chapter."

I didn't know any vampires any more. I'd only known one in my history. But I have heard of the Great Affliction before. It was a disease that took away a vampire's modus operandi. They could no longer "sire" or "make" new vampires. They also became unfulfilled by blood. It would no longer sustain them. Slowly, they would die. Like Frederick, my only vampire friend and only friend of the past century.

"How did you avoid the Affliction?" I asked him after he took another pause. He must be very old. Only older vampires had the time to waste.

He took his right hand and swung it at my face. Weakened by the silver, I felt every bit of pain he intended.

He bellowed in a tremendous voice belied by his stature. "AVOID the Affliction? Are you daft?" He took me by the throat and lifted me in the air, chair and all.

"Look. Look! Every drop of nectar from those blood-bags has gone to waste! Turned to poison inside me. Unconsumed. Un-consumable. I am among the afflicted."

Chapter 6

I only thought he'd avoided the sickness because he wasn't like the other vampires I'd seen who were ill. They had aged. They had looked dead, which they were, but more obviously. This creature looked as if he were a man of 35 years of age. The lines of his face may have been chiseled thousands of years ago, but all else was middle-aged.

I was powerless to do anything. His aggression was relentless. When he finished pounding my face in, he looked at me, his brown eyes squinting.

"You're healing already. You have fed, you can still drink blood, and you heal quickly. Death and plague all around you and yet you are immune. Our kind falling like rotten branches, but you are still strong." He grabbed my face by the jaw and shook it.

"In my travels there has been no one like you. Our people are going extinct. They would be all gone in a decade or two. But it's obvious to me now that you are our future. You can still MAKE vampire kin. Through you, we can flourish again. And we will become a race of creatures with no weaknesses. No affliction could overtake us if helmed by an unbreakable force as yourself."

I laughed. My fear had lifted years ago and no amount of trying would bring it back. I simply had none.

"I have never made a vampire and I would never make one. I haven't for myself and I wouldn't for you. We are a blight on this world. One that is thankfully being exterminated. I eagerly await the day I become afflicted, so that this evil may end once and for all."

It was his turn to laugh. "This evil doesn't end, you fool. I'm not asking you to do this for me or yourself. Neither of us has enough weight to matter. Do it for Hafteb, Lord of Spite, and source of our power. Spite is part of the human spirit and so long as it remains thus, the 'evil' you so eagerly wish to repel, will also remain."

I didn't know of any Hafteb. I'd never heard the name. "Hafteb. Sounds Egyptian," I mused.

"He drew fire in the lungs of mankind long before anyone populated the Nile Delta."

My bruises had healed completely. My gullet was full and I felt a bit rebellious. "Why should I do anything for him?"

"Because you are what he made you. He is what allows you to live for hundreds of years. To have the strength and speed that you possess; to fly, to charm, and grow beyond the smallness of humanity."

"Then I hate him more than anyone. I would never do anything in his service. Consider me a non-believer. Consider me not among the afflicted, but among the dead."

He motioned with his hand as if he were to hit me again, but then thought the better of it. "If there's something you possess, my friend, it's time. So sit for a spell. I will tell you our origin story. How vampirism all began. You'll understand how our kind came to be. And how, if you are already one of us, it could only have been by your own choice. And from there on forth, you've forgone all other choices."

Chapter 7

9,000 years ago.

Sometime after the world's glaciers began melting into freshwater streams and rivers, the Koshi plain on the continent of Africa emerged snow-less and fertile. As giant and woolly creatures died out a complicated ecosystem grew in their place.

A hierarchy of different creatures fed per their own tastes, and either submitted to their own predators or hunted their own quarry.

At the apparent top of this food pyramid was Man- the small, relatively hairless ape. Many tribes flourished and began to take roots in the land. Ancient societies emerged, hungry and inquisitive, beginning to ponder the doom of mortality, and the essence of good and evil.

The Kthota tribe of the Koshi plain grew in great numbers in complete isolation, adapting to the new abundance of prey and water. The lack of threats, either from nature or from other tribes, allowed them to flourish, and turn their minds from survival to deeper questions.

They discovered gods to worship and gods to fear, and developed a priestly caste to guide the tribe from this world to the next.

Every beneficent thing was a god- the sun, the river, the plains, the mountain, the rocks, the harvest- but the greatest of the gods was Tsonga, the life-giver who dwelt at the bottom of the river.

Tsonga permeated all tribal life. Rituals and ceremonies surrounded his worship and adoration. Eleven year olds, both male and female, swore allegiance to Tsonga and hunted in his name as a rite of passage.

Tsonga dictated dietary laws and practices. Only the blood of prey could be consumed, and the rest of the carcass must be given to the jackals, hyenas, vultures, and lions. This is a sacrifice to the other gods, the gods of the animal spirits. This constant hunt, bloodletting and sacrifice served as an appeasement for hundreds of years on the Koshi plain.

Until Ktaleb became tribal chieftain. Ktaleb had three children with the high priestess, as was customary for the chieftain. The names of his children were Radovan, the only male, Kaylana, the eldest who was slated to be future priestess and Ktomba, the youngest. The current high priestess was named Malii, "the most beautiful child of Tsonga".

The life-giver was always adored, praised and sacrificed for in the open plain. Many animals were killed for their blood, to feed the growing tribe. As such, the Kthota grew strong and tall, but thin. Ktaleb, as chieftain, often led many of the ceremonies on the plain, such as the Rite of Fire, the Rite of the Sacred Blood, and others. As Ktaleb led rituals more and more, Malii led them less and less.

The children loved Malii, who had become their adopted mother when their own mother died. Their real mother, the former high priestess Rada died trying to tame a lion. She firmly believed that Tsonga would protect her as she walked onto the plain in full sight of a roving pride. The entire tribe was on alert, but she walked out in the midst of them in the grip of some mad euphoria. She went to the large male which was off to the side. The lionesses had been in formation, surrounding a small group of zebras. She approached, but not cautiously. She said, "Tsonga commands you to come to me." It would not. She repeated loudly, "Tsonga commands you to come to me." In reply the beast growled. It was a warning, but a warning she would not heed.

She moved closer still. It roared and then pounced, and that was the swift, brutal end of the former high priestess. It was a big blow to the tribe but Ktaleb moved on, and in the span of a year was married to Malii. It was a bigger blow to the worship of Tsonga since the lion had not followed the life-giver's commands, but he continued to be revered nonetheless.

Blood was always spilled and collected in basins. The Kthota was a society that hunted all the time. In order to fill bellies and basins, many sacrifices were needed on a constant basis.

For that purpose, the tribe had hunter-warriors. The Prime Warrior was a powerful young man named Komo. He wore lion and hyena teeth around his neck and eagle feathers on his head just like Ktaleb. Though the warriors possessed bows and arrows, Komo's weapon of choice was the weighted spear. He'd made all his kills with it and would for the rest of his life.

"What does any of that have to do with vampires or this Hafteb guy? Or me???" I asked, frustrated.

He growled like the lion in the story. "I'm getting there. Don't rush a man with nothing but time."

Not much if he's Afflicted, I thought.

Ktaleb's progeny worshiped Tsonga and drank blood like pious young children. Like their father, they quickly grew to love Malii and she loved them in return. During the yearly Rite of the Sanguine Heart, the three were made honorary shamans. Radovan was made a priest; Kaylana and Ktomba priestesses.

The ritual involved a human sacrifice, known as an Aphid, whose purpose was like the insect. The Aphid would gorge on fresh blood for weeks, fatten herself up, full of the holy nectar. She was a virgin of course, and was sacrificed of her own free will. That year, as the three children were made shamans, they fed on the Aphid along with Ktaleb and Malii. The Aphid died at the end of the ceremony, after Ktaleb's incantations and final incision into the neck with a blunt tool.

From that transformative experience forward, Kaylana, the oldest child, was changed. She was different. Older. Wiser. She began to commune with Tsonga and wandered into the plains on her own. Alone. Unlike her mother she would always return unharmed.

One day she took a while longer than usual. When she returned, she began speaking of Hafteb, a new god, greater than Tsonga. He dwelt in a cave near the place where the elephants graze in the high grass.

Every afternoon Kaylana would go to commune with Hafteb. He gave her much secret knowledge, which she then shared with her brother and sister. The three of them attended the cave daily to receive enlightenment. Or in reality, you might call it, "endarkenment". Darkness does not hide truth; it reveals it.

The three siblings, after receiving knowledge, began to learn of power. Hafteb showed them near-limitless potential. Abilities undreamed of before by human beings. Strength, speed, agility, stamina, excellent vision and hearing, the ability to manipulate other minds, etc. In order to achieve such rewards, they would need to be tested by an act of faith, and would have to proselytize others into conversion. One must move away from Tsonga in order to fully embrace Hafteb.

And proselytize they did, under Kaylana's leadership. They first went to their father and adopted mother and told them about the wonders Hafteb showed them. How he and Tsonga were blood brothers, but how he was a far greater deity. They even invited them to go into the presence of the cave. Such a thing would be an honor for anyone, they said.

Ktaleb happily followed, but Malii was apprehensive. She'd been a priestess of Tsonga most of her life and entertaining a new god, a darker one, felt wrong to her. But she loved her adopted children and would go with them to the very depths of a volcano.

As they arrived at the mouth of the cave, Kaylana told her parents to take off their sandals and crawl into the darkness. They did so obediently. Once they arrived they saw him. Hafteb. To the uninitiated, it just looked like partially buried wildebeest bones, but after some thought one would realize that a single wildebeest could not climb up the steep, gravelly hill to reach the cave on its own.

It would not have gone there to die, and it would not have curled up so regally, displaying its bones as it did, if it were simply a dead wildebeest. The body was wrapped in a tight circle around the skull, face-forward, horns twisted, and the bones of the jaw arched into a knowing grin.

Ktaleb fell face down in reverence at the sight. He believed immediately. Malii also believed, but she was frightened. She was afraid of the repercussions his truth would have on her beliefs.

Kaylana, Radovan and Ktomba knelt with their father by the holy carcass. Malii remained standing, unsure what to do. Then she bowed low to give respect, but it was not full respect. She did not kneel.

Chapter 8

For a long time, they stayed in silence, no one wishing to break it for any reason. Even Malii remained, whether she was faithful or not. She felt the shadow over her. It was comforting in its iciness.Then there was a voice, a whisper coming from the bones. It sounded like the bellow of a great beast.

"Do you love her?" it asked the three siblings.

"Yes," they replied. They loved Malii. Ktaleb looked over to his wife with tears in his eyes. "Yes," he whispered in agreement.

"Then you know what you must do," Hafteb said. "Demonstrate your faith, and gain immortality."

Malii was sacrificed that day against her will. The three siblings drank the spilled royal blood. Ktaleb was not yet worthy to drink; he was new and uninitiated, but willing to be converted.

The three siblings were the first followers of Hafteb and were blessed with immense power in return for their devotion. As the first, they became known as the Triumvirate among future generations of vampire, all of which are their children. Including you.

Hafteb is a capricious god, spiteful in essence. Though the Triumvirate mourned the loss of their adopted mother, they gained far more than they lost.

Upon emerging from the cave, Ktaleb was in many ways, a changed man. As chieftain, he was in prime position to move the tribe closer to the clinging darkness, and preached to his followers about giving worship to a new and greater entity.

But not all would be convinced. Some clung fervently to Tsonga. Komo the warrior was the leader of the resistance. Ktaleb was the leader of the converts. The large tribe split into two and went to civil war with one another, a war which has never ended.

Battles raged for days, months, years and many centuries. The Triumvirate watched as both groups killed one another. Every fatality was a new morsel of food. As a string attached to their new gift, they could no longer feed upon animal blood, only human. The more innocent the victim, the sweeter the blood, the greater the power.

After a century, an armistice was agreed upon. The peace was kept tentatively and precariously, and often wavered. Ktaleb died without gaining immortality. Hafteb decided he remained unworthy to the end of his days, though he fought honorably on the side of darkness.

Kaylana spoke to Hafteb after her father's death. Though the three were made special, she was the most loved by the new god. She was the leader. The mother. She asked him to allow the Triumvirate to procreate. To have progeny. Kaylana longed for it. Hafteb considered this proposal and consented. "Keep true to the faith," he commanded her.

He, being a capricious spirit, demanded that all his children should likewise show caprice. They must revel in death and seek to destroy those things they formerly loved. All new vampires are required to drink the blood of their masters in order to complete their transition from death to un-death.

This is a choice. Yes, it is difficult to resist the temptation to feed, but it is a decision that is bound by free will. All vampires make a choice to live or to die. All vampires that I know of, have chosen so. As I'm sure you have. Since you're here.

In the eons that passed since the birth of our glorious race, change has always been afoot and has always been in our favor. The followers of Tsonga were not endowed with our might or our near-magical abilities. Their god did not think to grant them anything more than bloodlust.

The Tsonga tribe, through the years, relegated themselves to dark places, away from normal humans in order to be protected from the Hafteb tribe. Over time, they developed very pale skin. They grew long and thin, with exceedingly poor vision. A diet of animal blood left them vulnerable to sickness and bad health. The ones who survived, however, were very strong. Though not immortal, they were long-lived. When the average human lived 30 years, the Tsongas lived 100. When it was 50, they lived 200. And today, it might be somewhere around 500. Today, they are less and less human, more animal than anything. There are few Tsongas who can sculpt a complete or coherent sentence.

They live in caves and still perform Aphid sacrifices. They are happy to scurry about in hives like insects and remain unseen. We too, wish anonymity. But we have a greater inclination. Our prime purpose is to feed, above all else. But we are also nurturers of new life. Converters of the heathen, makers of new blood. It is a solemn thing to transform a petty, small, insignificant creature from prey, to child. It is not something done lightly. So now I ask that you enlighten me.

How were you born, Drake?

Chapter 9

How was I born? That's a good question. There's little that I remember from actual life. I had a great love, a woman who'd stolen my heart and didn't let it go. In an era of very little true romance, what I bore with her was real and deep.

I forget her name; most of her in fact is a faded memory. But I would rather cling to vague nostalgia from my past than endure my present horror. I take it you're asking how I the vampire was born, not I the man.

That is something that I do remember with some clarity. Joy is often forgotten but pain is well-remembered. I was walking with my beloved on a boardwalk. When or where is something that no one knows any longer. But we were alone. At first.

We were accosted by someone that we thought was a beggar on the street. His breath was foul and his eyes were blue. His face was pale. He looked at us with jealousy, I supposed. "Are you two in love?" he asked, almost drunkenly.

"Yes," she said. I reminded her that the man was a stranger, and told him to go away. His ravings were unwelcome to us. The man was dressed in a jacket and a maroon scarf. I recall that I was dressed much lighter. We turned around but he was there all of a sudden, in a flash. The look in his eyes changed from wearily amused to fiendish. The blue of his irises were in stark contrast to the red weaving streaks in the blood-shot white.

My fiancee` screamed. I got in front of her and punched the man in the jaw. He reeled backwards for a moment before regaining his footing. I drew blood from his mouth, but it was not bleeding. Somehow, it was already dry. It reminds me now of something someone once told me: "The difference between life and death is a little bit of moisture."

The monster smiled and his teeth were bared. "You're unafraid," he said. "But she isn't. She smells so much nicer than you do. But you'll make a good feast together. Sweet and sour do often mix well."

Not comprehending his allegiance with the night or apparently with Hafteb, I hit him again and again. I'd never thrown a punch before, but I certainly knew how. My last right cross brought him to the ground. He arose immediately, no longer amused.

"You love her, and you hate me. There is a lot of fire in your belly, little man." He was shorter than I was by several inches. I thought he would put up his dukes, that we'd go toe-to-toe. But he didn't. Instead, he grabbed me by the collar and lifted me up off my feet. I've seen that happen in movies more recently, but having it done to you really leaves you gasping, since as a breather, a constricting collar makes it difficult. It's a very uncomfortable feeling. You don't remember the sensation of requiring air in your lungs, do you? Me neither. I just remember the anger.

"Someone should extinguish that fire. Belly fires are very dangerous, you know. So I'm going to make a deal with you. I am going to kill you either way. That is a foregone conclusion. But the real question is whether I'm going to kill her. What do you think?" He laughed.

"No!" I begged. He advanced on me quicker than my eye closes when blinking. I remember little of how I was turned vampire, but I do remember emerging from a terrible sleep. He had already killed her. As far as I could tell, he twisted her neck all the way around. It was hateful. Insulting. But he hadn't drunk from her. No, he wanted me to wake up first so I could see it. So I could beg for her dignity and be denied it. This creature reveled in the insult.

I must have drunk from him in order to have been made vampire, but I don't recall that. All I remember from my transformation is the burning emptiness, unfilled by any delight, not worth its pursuit. And the ever-invasive sense of loss, gaping like the eyes of the abyss.

But it was I to thwart him this time. As he smiled, realizing that I'd finally awakened, able to see him commit devil's work, I attacked him with all that I had in me.

As a newly condemned soul, I would not allow him the satisfaction of drinking her. I learned afterwards that this vampire was one of the first afflicted. He'd begun to show symptoms but was still able to feed and sire new progeny. Yet he was under-powered and I overcame him easily. We were now of the same rotted flesh, but I was stronger. Unafflicted, as I am now.

I drank from my fiancee` in order to spite him. Every last drop. It was the last sweet blood that I'd ever tasted, and I hated every gulp of it. From then on, I condemned myself. I killed him, my vampire father whose name was Jerry, I came to know later. Jerry Fermin. Rhymes with Vermin, of which he was king. I drove my fist through his chest and ripped out his withered heart against his protests. Though he was my sire, he could not command me.

And though I drank from her, I'd begun to forget her immediately. The next days and nights were a blur. My infancy had begun anew, but it was an infancy belonging to un-death. Hunting and feeding were instinctive, but a small part of me remained throughout. The spite. I would only seek the bitter blood. I knew little then, but I knew to keep to that. Bitter is best.

And, here I am, stuck in your chair for surviving. Stuck in your chair interrogated for my continued un-life. I have tried to kill myself, to release my soul from this empty shell. But I could not. Of all the few vampires who now remain, I am the most accursed. I fear I am immortal.

My captor listened to me ramble on quietly, as I'd listened to him. Then he spoke softly. "Of all the few vampires who remain, you're the second to last one. The penultimate."

Chapter 10

"We are the last two in the world?" I asked. I was incredulous. It was impossible to believe that a disease could wipe out such evil in such a singular swoop. "What of the Triumvirate?" His eyes began to flit back and forth until finally they settled on me. "I am all that remains of the Triumvirate." That's when I finally understood. He was Radovan.

"Ktomba died first. Then some decades later, Kaylana succumbed to her ailment. I thought that I was spared the indignity of Affliction, but within the past ten years, I've gotten sicker with each night that passes. Now I am all that's left from the original clan of Hafteb. And you are the only child of Hafteb that remains un-afflicted. As such, it is your duty to pay tribute. You must sire new offspring as the only possible future of our nearly-dead race."

I just shook my head. I didn't get what he didn't understand. "I will never do that. Each moment since my last breath repulses me and this is no different. Do what you must. Try what you must. But leave me out of it."

"That is out of the question." He stood above me for a moment. "I cannot force you to sire children. But as long as I can, I will try to persuade you. There also may be a way to reverse the Affliction."

"How's that?" I was genuinely curious, but wholly un-invested in the outcome. I'd never asked to be vampire. And in my memory I'd never agreed to be vampire. Who cared how this blight on the human soul came to be? I would not align with the darkness.

"Find the cause. It is finally time to break our latest peace with the Tsonga tribe. As small a chance that those insects had anything to do with it, it still remains in the realm of possibility. Until I die, you will be by my side. I am still far stronger than you. And as one afflicted, silver holds no special poison to me. But I can hurt you with it. You are coming with me."

Fine. Let's go. If this trip ends in one of our deaths, I would exult in it. "Where are we going?"

Radovan untied me from the chair but then bound the silver around my wrists. Silver is not only painful, but it has a weakening effect in close proximity.

"We are going to visit Ermanne. The current chieftain of the Tsonga people. Our tribes have not had any diplomatic contact in a couple of centuries, certainly not since the Great Affliction began. I would never have had a reason to suspect them to possess a magic great enough to bring us down. If they are to blame, I shall exterminate them all and undo their hex. Then I wouldn't need you any longer. I would be the new father of my people. Perhaps that is what Hafteb intends after all. Perhaps this is a great test. And as before, great sacrifices are needed."

"If that's what he intended, wouldn't he have spared you?" I intentionally tried his patience. I sought release. Radovan was my best hope. He reached up and grabbed me again by the throat. "Hold on tight," he muttered. Then he flew up through the roof of the factory, dragging me with him. At the apex of his jump, he blew a fireball from his mouth into the pile of bodies, erasing any evidence of his vampirism. We then flew faster than sound, faster than I could say for sure.

Before I knew it, we were deep underground. I'd lost my bearings long before we landed. My eyes were not attuned to the pitch blackness. But Radovan, with the darkness of millenia etched in his memory, seemed to know where he was going. He'd kept dragging me along with a swiftness only allotted characters in comic books.

Once we arrived at the final destination point, he tossed me against a wall with impunity. "Ermanne!" He bellowed. "Ermanne, you sniveling worm, come out! Come out or I will draw you out with fire! I will torch your entire swarm of roaches so that the only things to ever remember you will be these filthy walls!"

A single torch came from a darkened hall in the distance, bobbing slowly into view. Once it came to within 20 yards, it stopped and moved to the left. At once, a row of torches became lit. Then another row was lit to the right.

The figure holding the original torch was tall and slender and clad in black. I couldn't see the features of his face but could tell that every feature belonging to him was angular and steep. As he approached us slowly, he bobbed his head from side to side. His nose was long and hooked, like a beak. But the rest of him remained in shadow.

"Radovan. Emissary of the children of Hafteb. To what do I owe the rare honor of your visit? I would offer you a beverage but I heard you no longer drink."

Radovan punched the wall to the chagrin of several rocks. "Our feud comes to an end now. How did you cast the affliction upon our tribe? Tell me and I will squash you quickly. Refuse and I will squash you slowly. I hope you refuse."

Ermanne stopped approaching. "You think that my tribe possesses the magic, or the knowledge to do this? Especially now?"

"It did not come from nowhere. We have not had many words in centuries. Who knows what you or your master of insects Tsonga is capable of, Aphid?"

"It is a difficult truth to face, dark child. We are both children of lesser gods." Then he stepped into the firelight. His face was pale and eyes were nearly white. He looked very birdlike. Frightening. Had I any air in my lungs, I would have held my breath.

He had black and green spots on his face near his nose. "Fungal brain parasite. Ravaged our entire tribe. Aphids, Warriors, Elders, all sick or dead. Aside from me, those who are still living have begun to cannibalize the dead. Then themselves. We did not avoid our own pandemic. We did not cause yours."

Radovan looked as if he'd been hit with a wrecking ball. I'd been observing this interaction from the ground, where the silver kept me weak. This underground lair had a lot of heat and humidity. A perfect environment for mold and fungus. Radovan turned to Ermanne. He sped up to him, balled his fist and punched a hole into Ermanne's stomach. It sounded to me like it hurt going in, but it was even worse coming out.

"Tsonga himself did this. He must have."

Ermanne disagreed as he slowly bled out. "Why don't you confer with your precious Hafteb? Tsonga did not do this. He has not spoken in almost a hundred years. Tsonga...is...dead..." And shortly after speaking, so was he.

Chapter 11

"You didn't have to kill him," I informed the last of the Triumvirate. "He was telling the truth. You saw the mold on his face."

"I did have to kill him. The bastard and his whole clan have been a thorn in my side for thousands of years. Besides, if he really was sick, then I did him a favor." Radovan brought me out into the light. We were in Africa. On the hunting plains with tall, tawny grass.

"You don't seem the type to do many favors." He looked at me vacantly. His hands moved quickly to undo the silver around my wrists. I instantly felt stronger, but not strong enough to escape.

"We cannot bring silver into Hafteb's sanctum."

We walked through the grass slowly, in no general rush. Even now after thousands of years, Radovan still revered his master. He walked with his hand over his dead heart and his head bowed. I carried no reverence with me as tribute.

The mouth of the cave was smaller than I'd envisioned it. This plain was wide open and beautiful with tall grasses and sparse trees. It probably looked just as Kaylana would have remembered it. It's often called the cradle of civilization. Is it also the grave of civilization? I wondered.

I shook my head at the thought.

Breaking his peace, Radovan accused, "What?"

"Nothing," I replied. "Just that it took but one person- your sister Kaylana, to wreak havoc and condemn the entire human race. It's not exactly fair, is it? Why does she speak for all mankind when she accepted Hafteb's evil on their behalf?"

I thought he might strike me for insolence but approaching the sanctum where his master dwelt might have dulled Radovan's anger. Made him more pensive and introspective, perhaps.

"If Abraham makes a covenant on behalf of humanity in order to save it, no one questions his authority to do so. Yet because Kaylana's covenant was of a different kind, you are quick to question hers? That is hypocrisy."

Of course by that logic, he was right. Who can speak for all? Is it arbitrary? Or did the grace which Abraham exuded and the spite which Kaylana did, both belong in the same human spirit? Was that spirit more like a bag that was full of all kinds of different wonders- goods, evils, neutrals, up to the brim?

"Here we are," he whispered. "Take off your shoes and crawl into the abode." He let me go in first because if he hadn't, I'd have sprung hundreds of miles an hour in the opposite direction. It wasn't that I feared Hafteb, it was that I'd hated him although I'd just learned his name. And I didn't want to be part of anything which might transform me even further, or take me any deeper into my monstrosity. I was holding onto the few small shreds of humanity that I had left as it was.

The cave opening was dull and gray, and the shadow it cast, especially at night was darker than pitch. It was humiliating but I crawled through the darkness and into the dank, humid cave. My eyes, used to such night, took very little time to adjust.

By the time Radovan entered, I had seen the skeleton. The effigy of Hafteb, which was supposed to be the bones of a wildebeest in a tight, unnatural circle. And yet these bones were not so neat. They looked as if they'd been strewn about, disturbed. Or, as if the wildebeest had simply perished and the bones fell where they may.

"Oh no. No!" Radovan moaned. "Someone has desecrated the sacred bones!"

It looked to be possible. Perhaps an afflicted vampire with a strong odor of resentment hacked him up?

In more hushed tones, remembering whose presence he was in, Radovan called out.

"Lord Hafteb. Lord Hafteb, it is I, your humble servant. The third of the Triumvirate. I was among the first of your children- you remember me, yes?" He waited for a response but got none.

He'd been speaking in a slow, methodical way, almost like an old man would be speaking to his much older, highly demented and nearly deaf father.

"Father. Father! Answer me!" he demanded. "What's happened to you?"

"He's dead," I replied, matter-of-factly. I reveled in it. The source of my pain, my horror, my un-life, was gone. Maybe he'd breathed his last, so to speak, on our way here. Maybe I too, can die.

Radovan no longer held to his previous decorum. He started pulling up the bones from the ground and shaking them. "He's not dead, he cannot be dead." He listened intently to some ribs, then eventually tore the wildebeest's head out, but apparently heard no whisper.

"Care to re-evaluate that opinion?" I teased. It didn't matter how he would react to me- tearing me apart would release me from this evil binding shroud.

"He cannot be dead. So long as there is spite within the human spirit, there is Hafteb. Or at least his essence. There are vampires. There is...you..." he looked at me sideways. "Yes, you..."

He approached me with lightning quickness. "You were born of spite- a creature purely and truly aligned with Hafteb's spirit. Rather than birth you the right way, by your choice, your maker did not respect your wishes. And so you've been spiting yourself because of what you are- forgoing all the sweet and sensible blood of innocent humans, devouring only the most foul...while the rest of us dined for millennia on the decadence of the good. Don't you see, Drake...you are the next evolution of our kind? A spite akin to self-immolation!"

I didn't see that. Or I didn't want to see that. "I will never birth another. There will be no more of our kind, Radovan. The spite ends with me."

He smirked. "Then you will never die, so long as humanity lives." His demeanor changed as if he just solved a puzzle.

"Your blood. Your blood must be the saving grace of us all. Your living blood must be the cure to the Affliction!" He thrust his fangs into my neck and began to drink. His eyes rolled to the back of his head in reverent expectation.

Now his demeanor changed again. His face turned green. Radovan began clawing at his own neck, which looked more and more bruised, like that of a corpse who'd been strangled. Then he regurgitated back my blood, black and heavy, upon the desecrated bones. He fell down amidst the darkness.

"Then I am as dead as Hafteb. But our kind will rise again." He was weak, far weaker than before, and far older-looking. "You cannot keep our spirit down. You cannot control it. It will destroy you...and you will be forced to thrust it upon the world again."

He started to stand and then landed back on his knees. "Now go. I wish to die here. Alone. Among the bones I've worshipped for nine thousand years. It's almost as if Hafteb died to spite me in the end."

I felt many things then. One big emotion was liberation. Another was gladness that the rotten race of vampires was coming to an end. Radovan was the penultimate. That made me the ultimate.

This worried me. As the last one currently, how could I ensure that there are no others after me? Further, how can I ensure my own behavior? My hunger becomes unbearable after a long while, and my ability to control it leaves me. I am a slave to the pangs, the yearning- the thirst after a drought.

Would I continue my days and nights lying in wait, killing a random bad person when they crossed my starved path? Should I keep myself away from temptation, from the large cities which harbor the roaches and rats upon which I feast every so often?

Or should I seek to confine myself somewhere that I cannot rage? Like a monastery of some kind, where I can perhaps learn to channel that yen...but where?

I hear California's lovely this time of year.

Fred's Café`

This is my official statement to the 62nd Precinct of Brooklyn New York Police Department. I'm giving this statement freely of my own accord, on a video recording made by officers of the precinct.

My name is Fred Trillo. Fred is short for Alfredo, which I haven't been called since I was about three years old. Up until my 30s it was Freddie and it settled down to Fred from my 40s on.

I'm 61 years old, and I have no children, nor have I ever been married, although I once lived with a woman for 5 years- 3 years shy of being common-law husband and wife. That is, in a different place, since New York isn't a common-law state.

The woman I lived with was wonderful but there is no possible union with another person, in which half of yourself doesn't disappear. And sometimes more than half. I've never been that fellow, never felt the desire to give up so much or ask someone else to do the same. I'd never seen the point of it, to be honest.

The term "friends with benefits" is fairly recent, but it's not without its merits. What's better than a friend to console you when you seek a warm embrace? Don't get me wrong, I've had my fair share of relationships- girlfriends, and that was fun. But there was always too much pressure to do more, give more, and I was never up to it when push came to shove.

The only girl I felt differently about was Francesca Illumina. Her last name in Italian means, "to brighten." It was a good description of her- we'd met when I was 25 and the future was ahead of me, residing in a big world that was a candy factory open only to me and my sweet tooth.

It was a long time ago and lasted far too short. But my memory of her to this day fills me with nostalgia; her face is framed in a wreath of light whenever I think of her. As clichéd and annoying as it is to say, the truth is that she was the one that got away. I hadn't known at the time whether it was because I let her get away or whether she swam herself away. It'll be an interesting thought for later.

For now, let me tell you about my brother, Bastiano. In English, that's Sebastian. I know it might seem like I'm a very ethnic fellow but the truth is, I like espresso and I speak the Italian language a little bit. Other than that, I'm American through and through. My parents came here when they were young and they also got busy working themselves to death from the moment they arrived. This, of course, was the American dream, a dream I cherish for whatever it's worth.

Bastiano was a bad egg and I was a good egg. He always hung out with the wrong crowd as a kid and as an adult, he became dangerous. He climbed the crime ladder all the way up to Captain of a Mob family. I never had any illusions about him and I still don't. What's funny is that I always looked tougher and meaner. I was the oldest, and I was taller, darker and more serious. Bastiano was short in many ways: quick to smile, but quick to fight as well. It didn't take much to provoke either.

Contrary to what Detective Jimenez might think, I never had anything to do with my brother's business dealings. He was always family and nothing would ever change that, but I could not condone his lifestyle. I was raised Catholic and I was Catholic in thought and deed, not in name only.

Yes, I made six figures every year since 1993 and was able to purchase an apartment building, which I rent to tenants at a reasonable price. But the way I made my money was legitimate. I was an EMT with the Fire Department for ten years. While working on the ambulance I took tae kwon do classes with a great group of guys- friends for all my life. I've been doing martial arts for the very best part of 35, 40 years.

One day I decided to open up my own private ambulance company: STARS Ambulance Co. As a business venture, it did well. I taught CPR a few times a week and did demonstrations for EMT classes. I made myself available for large venue events like concerts, college orientations, and the most lucrative part of my business was being on-call for commercials and movie sets. My ambulance was in service on any mass casualty incidents in Brooklyn, and I was logged in to Fire Department dispatch for busy days to provide them with aid.

Around the year 2000 I decided to sell the ambulance company and with the money, I bought my six-floor building. But I didn't stop working; I also bought myself a martial arts studio and taught 21 classes a week for almost 15 years. I just sold the studio a year ago. I told myself that that was it, I'm retired. Maybe, just maybe, I'd finally look for love.

Then I went to my brother's café. We hadn't spoken in a while. What was there ever to say? There was love there but tinged with sorrow, tainted with regret. His café was called "Fred's", after me. I ached at that gesture when I found out about it.

When I walked in, he was sitting there watching soccer on the big screen TV and drinking a double shot of espresso. He really became ethnic, in my opinion. He wore black like a mortician and became very serious as he got older. Now at 54 years old, he never smiles and I doubt he ever will.

There's not much to tell about my time there; I ordered a double shot and took it with no sugar, just a tiny lemon wedge. We sat uncomfortably quiet, watching TV. I saw him a few times a year usually, if that. The last time I'd seen him before this was for a summer barbecue. We laughed about how alike we looked in our old age.

This time, he seemed just worn; the wrinkles on his face were deep and chiseled. He looked 7 years older than me, not 7 years younger. Them's the breaks for living a life of crime, in my opinion. It gets wearisome to protect an empire, while always looking over your shoulder during the day and sleeping with one eye open at night.

We talked about visiting our parents at the cemetery and about his 7 year old daughter, whose life he feared for because of his presence in it. Again, them's the breaks. I told him that. "I know, Fred, I know," he'd say back with a Guido folded-hands-in-a-prayer gesture. If he could take it all back, he would, he said. There's so much time and effort spent in doing the wrong thing and then regretting it, that you might as well do things right the first time.

I got angry at him. It wasn't in response to anything specific, it was just in general. At the truckload of clocks and watches of lost time because of his stupid way. He told me he understood how I felt, but if I wanted to ever build a new friendship with him, he was at my namesake café every day between 3:30 and 8pm. At any rate, I left. A few blocks away as I made a turn to get to the steps of an elevated train, I was accosted by three masked kids wielding baseball bats. They jumped out of their car on 63rd Street and attacked me.

Had they known about my ability to fight, I'm sure they'd have brought at least one gun. To shorten the fight scene, let me just say that I threw a side-kick at the first guy right in the abdomen, took the same leg and roundhouse-kicked the second larger fellow to the jaw, and the third had no chance of outrunning any of the procession of fists that rained down upon him.

It caught me by surprise but my training kicked in immediately; I think I was only actually aware I'd been attacked after I saw the trio sprawled on the floor beat to blazes. Just then, another set of training protocols kicked in, and that was my training as an EMT. I went to each guy and took a quick set of vitals, observing them all for adequate airway, breathing and circulation. All bleeding was controlled by the time the ambulance arrived.

The three guys were in rough shape and still unconscious, so when the police arrived, I lied and told them I was uninvolved but that I'd seen it all happen. I know, that implicates me in obstruction of justice and lying to law enforcement but in my opinion, since it was self-defense anyway I just saved the department a whole lot of paperwork.

Having the pull that I had with the Fire Department from my many years of service, I was allowed to ride in the back cabin and head with them to the hospital. There's a policy that there should be no more than one patient to one EMT on an ambulance, so I figured it was a good thing that I kept my license up to date.

I stuck around in the hospital once the three all got processed. I patiently waited for them to be assigned rooms. And then, I patiently waited for the leader, the third person in the attack, to wake up in his third floor hospital suite. His name was Philip. He was blond and relatively young, maybe 19 or 20. He was good-looking, except for the left side of his face where I'd punched his eye shut.

The boy stirred and discovered that he was tied to the bed, as a precaution since he'd been implicated in an attempted assault. He looked over to me but I didn't think that he could see me too well. "Mr. Trillo?" he asked in a weak voice. So, he did know who I was and it was a planned assault, I thought.

"Yes," I answered, with no mal-intent whatsoever but rather justified curiosity. "Why did you try to kill me today?"

He didn't flinch. He wasn't scared. He was tougher than he looked. His voice didn't waver when he said, "Because you killed my grandmother."

I was the one who flinched. "I what?" My voice was the one that broke. He must have been confused. "Who was your grandmother?" I wanted to know.

Looking out at the starlit sky through the hospital window, he said, "Francesca Illumina." I nearly fell off my chair through the ground and down to the second floor.

Most of my life was spent being composed and put together, but I found myself flubbering at this accusation, at the very mention of Francesca, AND at the thought that she had had a child, let alone a grandchild!

The last time I heard from her was in a correspondence letter that was left in my work mail. In the 70's I was a payroll accountant at a tire company and Francesca was the office manager. She ordered all the supplies, maintained inventory, and ran the secretarial staff and receptionists.

We were in the throes of a whirlwind four-month romance in 1976 when all at once, she stopped coming into work. I called her house and the number was disconnected. I didn't know where to turn or what I did wrong but I knew she'd left me.

A week after her disappearance, she sent me a typed letter saying that she moved to California to take care of her ailing mother. She decided to stay there and begin a new life with the hope she shared with millions of other women to be discovered as a bright starlet in a drab and empty Hollywood sky.

Francesca had written, "I'm sorry if I led you to ideas of the future where we both live together happy but in a cage. I'm following my star without chains, unbridled like only the most beautiful wild spirits can be. You understand, Freddie. Love, Francesca."

From then on, I stopped seeking a love that tamed, and pursued a quiet, safer life with friends and success- all you need aside from health, in order to be happy.

Philip went on. "I'm sure you know they found her body. You buried her in a municipal building in 1976; you stashed it there while it was being constructed. Well now that they tore it down they found her. And you know what else they found?" His small voice rose in righteous conviction. Once he found that tone, he was on a roll.

"They found a letter. A confession, from her. She began the note confessing to...it was your brother, I think. Freddie. She was dating him but she cheated on him with you."

Oh no.

"She was writing a confession to Freddie that she was unfaithful to him and she wanted him to know she was sorry. She also had a five year old boy at the time- my dad. Who just happens to be a police captain now, thank you very much for poetic justice. His reading of the forensics was that she must have heard you coming into the building, must have known she was about to get killed, so she swallowed the note. When she decomposed in the wall, the note survived.

"And why did you kill her in the first place? Hmm? Because you found out she got pregnant with your bastard child and she was going to tell everybody! Instead of facing up to your mistakes, you did the cowardly thing and got rid of her. Go ahead, I'm not afraid. Kill me too, tied up to this bed and unable to defend myself, you coward."

My head spun. I nearly threw up. I fought to regain my balance. My brother stole Francesca from me to the extent he possibly could; he completely removed her from me and this world, this candy store at a time when I thought the candy was free. He was never any good and never would be. His daughter would be better off without him there to stink up her life.

Asserting myself with an even tone, I told the boy, "You're right. I am a coward and I deserve to die. I know you're not going to stop until I'm dead, so let me make it easier for you. I'm at Fred's Café every day between 3:30 and 8. Bring a gun next time." Then I walked away.

Them's the breaks.

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