Evilution

by Lisa Moore

  Apparently they made this cast when they were following up on reports of a Yeti seen by local villagers. They tracked the creature through densely packed woods, its foot prints obscured by the excited villagers and the dogs used to track the scent, until they found one un-obscured print at the base of a tree. This led to a rocky outcropping where they lost the trail. The class seemed to deflate as she talked about the trail going cold and not having found any more conclusive evidence. It was as if the class had been hanging on her every word, experiencing the thrill of exploration and the excitement of discovery until just around the next bend the trail went cold, eliciting dejected feelings of coming up empty.

  As class wound down Professor Bean made an announcement to remember on the way out of class to leave the essays that were due today in the basket on her desk. A student, likely the rare upperclassmen, asked Professor Bean if she personally believed in the Yeti or Big Foot. Her answer, like everything I have seen about this woman so far, left me smiling; although this time my smile was not likely to scare anyone since I was not currently consumed by the hunt.

  Professor Bean said “I like to believe in the possibilities of the unknown, the mysterious and the difficult to explain. I am also not so egocentric as to think that we know all there is to know. Remember the story of the Japanese fishing vessel I told you? Their radar showed what they thought was a large school of tuna. When they hauled up the steel mesh nets they used, they were shredded like tissue paper. There was never an explanation as to what did that. And what about the story of the Coelacanth, an ancient fish thought to be extinct since the end of the Cretaceous period over 65 million years ago, caught in fishing net off the coast of South Africa in 1938? For millions of years those creatures went unnoticed, living among us in obscurity. You see, Mr… ?” “Stevens”, replied the student. “Mr. Stevens, some things have adapted extraordinary means of self preservation, like the ability to use camouflage or the ability to exist in extreme and remote locations, we can’t possibly know of all the earth’s creatures. Some things just don’t want to get caught!” The Professor didn’t know how right she was.

  As I got ready to leave class, enjoying the strange way I felt after being near her, Professor Bean made one final class announcement. It was her weekly teaser. Every Friday she would let us know the topic for the next week’s discussion so we were able to research the most recent information on the subject matter. What she said stopped me from my banal exercises and had I needed to breathe I might have inhaled sharply. I was expecting this; it was the reason I signed up for this class in the first place. Actually it was why I settled on Hills College, of all places, for my latest life chapter.

  It has been many years since I lived in this part of the world. I was researching colleges and their various class offerings and it was this class title that drew me in. I always like to keep up with the latest concepts humans have of creatures like me, “the cold ones”, “the undead”; vampires. These names show the level of ignorance humans have towards individuals like me. I am not cold exactly, my body maintains a constant temperature of 95 degrees, and the status of my death is complicated. I died as a human, the end result of my transition to a vampire. Now my cells function in the presence of an appropriate blood supply, yet I am not technically alive.

  “Next week we will discuss the myth of the vampire, one of my favorite topics in this course. Studying this topic has brought me to some interesting places. I look forward to our discussion next week. Have a nice weekend.” It was peculiar really; the reason for me taking this class, the reason for me coming to this small part of the globe, and suddenly, instead of looking forward to hear about her ideas on vampires, I was now terrified how she might feel about them, about me.

  How did it happen that I have become inexplicably drawn to this woman? The sudden realization she might be repulsed by the idea of vampires or worse yet one of those who feel they, we, need to be hunted and destroyed left me with an ache where my heart continues to beat out of reflex rather than need. What is it about this woman that makes me feel?

  Chapter 2

  My Beginning

  I was born in 1887 to a young couple in Franklin NY, a small town 7 miles south west of Hills College. Franklin was a rural farming community where the population of domestic farm animals out numbered the town’s people three to one. My parents, Alexander VanderCreek and Elizabeth Gates VanderCreek were friends since birth. Growing up in a small farming community with a record high of 18 students in their school, every kid was friends with every other kid out of necessity. There just weren’t that many of them. But it seemed Alexander and Elizabeth’s destinies were intertwined.

  They met on the day of their birth April 13, 1869 in the small delivery room in Dr. Monroe’s office. A child’s birth was an occasional event in the small rural community but it was quite another thing for two women to give birth the same day at the same time. Dr. Monroe had to set up the two beds side by side in the small delivery room. He needed to work quickly to help both women with their deliveries. Alexander arrived at 2:34 pm, crying up a storm; Elizabeth came 7 minutes later. When Elizabeth entered the world, she gave a short cry as if to say, “I am here” and then quickly quieted. At the moment of Elizabeth’s birth, Alexander finally settled down and fell soundly asleep against his mother’s breast. It was as if Elizabeth’s mere presence could calm Alexander. The tired mothers joked “she has a soothing effect on him; they must have already decided to be best friends”.

  The two young families spent much time together. The young mothers enjoyed each others company and tended their children while their husbands worked. The two families would often eat supper together at one home or the other. The women cooked meals together and helped each other with household chores. When Elizabeth and Alexander were just 14, Alexander declared that Elizabeth would be his wife. Elizabeth just smiled and said “of course I will”, as if she had known this fact forever. Three years later the two married. Nearly one year after their marriage, they had me, Maximillian Alexander VanderCreek. My beginning would be the end for Alexander and Elizabeth.

  Something happened during the delivery and as a result Elizabeth bled heavily and continued to do so. Alexander was brought in to see his wife and child and wept at the sight of his beautiful Elizabeth, pale as the sheets that she lay upon. Somehow she looked more beautiful, almost angelic, as she gazed lovingly down at her infant son. She cooed into his tiny ear loving words, welcoming him into the world. “You look like a Maximillian. No, something grander, Maximillian Alexander” she said. Alexander kissed Elizabeth’s pale forehead and marveled at the site of his newborn son. He watched her cradling their child, until her exhaustion overcame her and she fell asleep. Knowing Elizabeth was too weak to tend to the infant, Alexander asked the midwife, a young woman from town who had lost her husband and child in a fire the year before, if she would take care of Maximillian until Elizabeth was well. She agreed to watch the child and cared for Maximillian with love and tenderness.

  Elizabeth died on April 13, 1887 it was their 18th birthday and one week after having me. Alexander was inconsolable. Elizabeth was the calming center of his universe. Her death left him with a hole in his heart. His best friend since birth, his wife, his lover, his reason for being, now lay dead in their bed, drained of her life’s blood. The two shared a birthday 7 minutes apart, their entire life was intertwined. Each milestone in life was a shared experience. When they crawled, when they walked, when they talked, even when they lost their first tooth, all these happened within days of the other. Consumed by grief, Alexander lay down in bed, cradled his dead wife against his chest and quietly slit his wrists. Alexander’s last breath would come 7 minutes after Elizabeth’s. Like everything else they shared in life they would share death. As he held Elizabeth and lay there dying, his last words were a whispered “I’m sorry” to the son he would never get to know.

  My father visited me the day before their deaths. H
e took me to see my mother. At barely one week old I know I can not remember them. The only memories I have of them are someone else’s caught on film. Two photographs, one from the day of their wedding, and one from that last visit, with me in my mother’s arms and my father helping her hold me. As old as the pictures are, you can still see the life and the emotion caught on film. My mother was beautiful, even in her dying hours. A smile, peaceful on her lips, as she gazed down at the infant in her arms. This, in sharp contrast to the anguish in my fathers face as he looked at his Elizabeth. Sensing her death? I think that is why he brought me to see her, the family, together for one last brief moment. I only know of this because of the kind woman who took me in and raised me as her own child, Genevieve Tully, my mother as far as I knew for those 18 years, told me on my 18th birthday the true story of my beginning and as a gift gave me the two pictures and a letter from my father.

  The letter, read and re-read so many times, I have committed to memory was as follows.

  April 10, 1887

  Dear Maximillian,

  When I look into your small, peaceful face I see your mother’s beauty, the graceful line of her lips and honey kissed skin mirrored in yours. Your hair is dark like mine; however your nose is as yet a mystery, the tiny button not yet resembling mine or your mother’s. But it is your eyes that look at me with a remarkable clarity for only 4 days old; deep, soul penetrating eyes, which cause me to overflow with both joy and grief. Joy for your pure beauty and the awe I feel at your miraculous creation and grief because I know I will abandon them to follow your mother. When you look at me with those searching eyes, an exact copy of your mother’s unique grey blue almost lavender color, I am haunted at the knowledge that your mother’s days to look at me with those exquisite eyes are coming to an end. I feel her life slowly slipping away with the trickle of blood that continues to escape her pale figure. It physically drains my will to live as I sit each day by her side unable to help her. She has slept nearly three days and had awakened asking for you. I will bring you to see her today. I sense the time is near. She loves you as do I. I am sorry you will never have memories of your parents’ love, but know that you are loved. The look of total devotion on your mother’s face right after you were born as she stared down at you breaks my heart, knowing she will not be able to watch you grow into the exceptional man you are destined to become. Forgive me, my son, for leaving you but I have never been without your mother for more than the few hours each night we slept in our own houses as children. Our lives have been linked since birth and I know I can not continue to live without her. I can feel my heart break a little more each day. As your mother moves closer to death, my own death draws near. I can not let her go into the afterlife alone. When the time comes and your mother takes her last breath, so too shall I. I will hasten my sure demise and we will be together always. I am leaving you with a kind woman who has lost her family in a tragedy. She has love to give and a hole in her heart. Perhaps you two will help fill the others void. While it seems that our life no longer has a future, yours just begins. Out of tragedy, good will come, of that I am sure. Be a man who follows the path of goodness my son and one day our souls shall be together again. We love you Maximillian.

  Your mother and father,

  Alexander and Elizabeth VanderCreek

  I loved Genevieve, the only mother I knew for the past 18 years. As she filled in some of the gaps in the story of my beginning and answered what questions she could, I was suddenly plunged into a sensation of overwhelming guilt for the death of the parents I never knew. It was strange; I was not sad for the time I missed with them as I grew to manhood, Genevieve was a wonderful mother and we had a very happy life together. My grief came from the knowledge of how they died from exsanguinations.

  It is a bitter irony that both my parents would die drained of their life’s blood. I feel as guilty for those deaths just as if I drew the blood from them myself. I know my mother died as a result of hemorrhage from childbirth. Medicine was not as advanced 122 years ago especially in such a rural setting. Possibly today in a hospital she would have lived. But I killed her by being born. My father, on the other hand, could never live without his Elizabeth, or she without him to be sure. As she lay dying the week before her last breath, Alexander was visibly dying a little each day along with her. Genevieve said “even had he not opened his veins that day, he would have died of a broken heart soon after.” It wasn’t until after I completed my transition that I would understand why the blood loss so affected me.

  Chapter 3

  The “Library”

  Bloody Mary Sundays at the Library Pub, a local drinking establishment named for its’ library decor, seemed to be a favorite respite for the professor. She sat at a small table in the front window of the bar, half buried by a stack of papers and bathed in the light of another beautiful fall afternoon, unaware of my figure across the alley watching her every move. I loved to observe her from afar, watching as her teeth tore the flesh from the chicken wing held between her two graceful fingers, the rhythmic movement of her throat as she swallowed was intoxicating. I watched each sip she took from her “Bloody Mary”, leaving a drop of red on her lips, deftly attended to by a quick flick of her tongue. In the early days after my transition, this practice of following a beautiful woman and fixating on her delicious looking neck would have been dangerous. I am ashamed to say that my willpower in the beginning was tested and I failed. But now it was merely my uncontrolled fascination of this creature that sat before me unaware, instead of my desire to feed, that draws me to follow her every move.

  I had decided after class on Friday that I would approach her. Simply following her and observing were no longer satisfying. I needed to talk to her, to get to know her. More importantly, I felt compelled to let her know me, to see me, possibly even accept me for the strange creature I was. I was treading into dangerous and unknown territory. I had lived a relatively solitary life since my mother Genevieve died. Of course, there have been times when I indulged in the pleasures of the flesh. However, these encounters left me unsatisfied and unfulfilled. The feelings that have been stirring in me ever since that first day in her class and that incredible morning in the woods are completely alien to me. I had better be careful to not let whatever is going on in me, endanger my well kept secrets, at least not yet.

  As I walked into the bar, the sounds of Coldplay filled the background and scattered conversations of the few patrons mingled with the music. I saw the professor by the bar, her hand running over the tight crop of hair on the bartender’s head. “Very patriotic” she said, commenting on his choice of red, white and blue stripes he recently added to his hair. “Always a patriot, Jellybean” he said. By their familiar banter, it was obvious they were good friends. However, that simple gesture made me tense. I didn’t like her hands on another man. Was it jealousy or something stimulating my predatory nature that had me struggling to keep from leaping over the bar to snap the bartender’s neck in my hands like one snaps a pencil?

  “Paul, I told you not to call me that around my students. I don’t want them calling me that.” She said his name, with what I thought was more like sisterly affection than with longing. Paul would not die here today. I brought my emotions under control and walked up to the bar to order a drink. “I’ll have a Bloody Mary and a fresh one for the professor” I said to Paul, keeping my tone as neutral as I could. The professor turned to protest the drink and I introduced myself. “Professor Bean, my name is Maximillian VanderCreek,” I said as I extended my hand to her. “I am in your Bio 108 lecture.” The professor extended her hand, my urge was to bow and kiss her hand befitting the lady she was. However that gesture in this day and age is considered forward. I shook her hand instead, taking care to handle her as delicately as one might handle a butterfly, so fragile I might break her. The Professor returned a firm handshake; I could feel her pulse quicken slightly when I held her hand for a second longer than necessary. />
  “Call me Lily” she returned. “Thank you for the drink, although I’m not in the habit of accepting them from students”. “Then thank you for honoring me by accepting it.” I responded. That first touch of her skin, her scent, and the way her pulse can be seen beating in the graceful curve of her neck, is something I will remember forever. I can’t explain it but somehow she made me feel so alive! Quite a feat since technically I haven’t been so for almost one hundred years.

  “Ok” she said “but I will only accept it if you join me for a while. I have been grading those essays for the past two hours and I could use a break. Care for some wings?” she said as she gestured over to her table. Paul delivered our drinks with a scowl as he heard me say, “I would love to join you for a drink, Lily”, her name like a delicious morsel on my tongue, “but the wings are all yours.” “Vegetarian?” she asked. I smiled at the name and said “yes”. I am a vegetarian of sorts. “More for me” she said. “I am definitely a carnivore! I don’t know how you live without it.” I let this line of conversation drop. Maybe one day I would trust this woman to the truth of my dietary habits, but today I would keep the conversation light.