We stepped out of the cabin as the sun crested behind the tree line and she led me to an old Ford truck that looked like it had been well taken care of. I had no idea what year it was made, no truck in my lifetime or before it had been designed quite like this one. The blue paint was faded and pockmarked by what was probably a rare hail storm once upon a time, but other than that it was spotless. I assumed that the truck was not driven much considering the speed with which we could travel by our feet, but there was no way we could span almost seventy-five miles by foot and return before morning.
“Get in,” she instructed as I marveled at the contoured lines of the body, the lift kit on it was just enough to make it good for mudding, but not ridiculous enough to make it a mechanical burden as a daily driver. I did as she instructed and climbed into the gray leather passenger seat, void of any kind of cracking or stain. I could smell a chemical, most likely a kind of preservative on the skin of the seat. This showed me that she knew how to take care of a truck. I liked that about her, she was independent and handy. I wondered where those personal traits led in other areas of her life, such as loyalty.
The truck started with a silent engine, I presumed it was some kind of hybrid due to only a faint smell of fuel, or maybe the efficiency of engines when this truck was built did not require much fuel to operate, either way, I was satisfied with the machine. She pulled out of the long gravel driveway and headed north. The empty highway carried us to an intersection between highway eleven and highway forty-two. She made a right-hand turn and pulled into what used to be a parking lot, but the chunks of asphalt had been broken up over time and grass, weeds, and trees have sprouted in between the cracks.
In my mortal life, the hardest dilemma in regards to seeing at night was the lack of street lights in rural areas, this proved inconsequential for me now, the reflection of moonlight and starlight from the retina's in my own eyes cast the light for my feet to travel by. It was with a keen awareness that our feet led us to the crumpled pile that was formerly a post office building seated along the old highway, bordered by asphalt and brush. I remembered a time in my life when the post offices in our area were going bankrupt, I wondered if this building bore witness to that particular desolation or not. I thought it might, then moved on as Maggie removed the particle board barrier that kept the back entrance secure, or at least it used to before the rot, decay, and Maggie’s hand got hold to it.
The bricks of the building were worn from over a century of rain and storms. The gulf coast had always been a magnet for extremities. That kind of weather took a toll on everything as it crept north into the central part of the state. Some trees scattered about our region grew sideways from one-hundred miles per hour winds tormenting the saplings early in their life. Storms could do the same to humanity if you let it. Look at me for example; instead of dying here I was a shell of my former humanity. It was a gross realization of a time left forgotten and replaced by loss.
"We're in," she said as she settled the dry rotted board onto the ground next to her. She shuffled into the battered doorway and stepped over the feces of varmints long since gone. Spider webs created a sort of blanket over the walls, their dead hung like ornaments in a tree. They were trophies that bore title to the survival of the fittest.
"This is where you were changed," I said more than asked. My foot brushed by the layer of skin left by a rattlesnake that had shed it years prior. His threat meant nothing to me, even if I were in his presence now. Still, the prior fears of humanity filtered their way into my thoughts. The menacing threat poisonous fangs entering the flesh seemed barbaric but look at me now. I seemed to have more in common with a viper than a human now, how quaint of a realization, I thought to myself.
"It is." Maggie turned in circles taking in her prior residence. It was a kind of dance to see her move. Graceful, elegant, the mesmerizing wave of existence, she pulled it off flawlessly, meticulously. "This is where I woke from my prior life," she said pointing at a half rotten mattress worn and tattered on the ceramic tiled floor. It smelled of piss, some of it possibly even human. I could see her smell the air next to me, I was certain she detected the same. My stomach tightened at the idea that this was like a grave in some respects, and the vermin and the homeless had defiled it in a kind of way by crossing its thresh hold. Instead of discovering a dead body here, they merely found the final resting place of her humanity, and the evidence of it would not be visible to them, but I could feel the longing exude from her standing next to me.
"What do you think we will find here?" I asked.
Maggie exhaled and turned to face me. "Nothing, not a damned thing," she replied and pushed past me. Her heightened senses proved to touch even the nerves of her emotional state. It was something that I had experienced in the thrill and terror of encountering her for the first time. A sensation that I kept close at hand, it kept me grounded, to the point that I believed I was more human because of it. It was a lie of course, but was I not entitled to lie to myself?
"Maggie, wait," I said, willing her to stop in her tracks. She did. "What is wrong?" I felt like an idiot asking such a question, but I needed her to vocalize it. She was a closed book, one that I wanted to open and to reveal her contents.
"There's nothing here," she said. "That's what's wrong!" she turned on me, her eyes on fire, and the silver reflection cast the moon in my own direction. I held her gaze, unwilling to let her out of my sight.
"Then we keep looking," I said.
"For what?"
"For anything that strikes a chord in your memory. Dig deep, Maggie. I know how it feels, but surely there is something in this shambled area that is a connection to your past."
She bowed her head and shook it lightly. It was almost too slight to tell if I still had human eyes, but I recognized it as agreement. She stepped back into the small room that had once been a terminal for letters and packages in this small town. The smell of coal touched my nostrils as the wind drifted from the west. A train track that was close to two hundred years old was covered in the grass and weeds that were overgrown around it. I knew these tracks would lead to several larger cities in the southern state that we called home. Hattiesburg, Laurel, Meridian, the latter held historical significance during the civil war. Sherman's march to the sea had seen Meridian in ruins; flames had licked almost every building within its borders. The Sherman bow ties had left the confederacy without supplies. Even the quick repair of the tracks by old men and slaves had not been enough to save the southern army. It was a history of infamy, passed from generation to generation.
Maggie moved slowly behind me, taking in the details around her. I could feel the air move as she bent down and shuffled through the contents of a small pile of debris. "My, God," she said as she stood to her feet once again.
I turned to face her, pulled from my thoughts about the railways.
"Look at what I found," she said as she lifted a faded picture of herself; it was a Polaroid of some kind, not the type that I remembered growing up with. It was an image of her pre-changed, but it was a horrific sight to behold. Her clothes were torn and blood was drained from her face. I could see a reddening around her mouth; I assumed it was from a blood transfer from her maker, though I had no basis for this assumption. Her hand trembled unnaturally as the picture dangled from her delicate looking fingers.
I took the picture from her hand and examined it with the dull glow of a fading out street light that was more than fifty yards away. It was enough for my enhanced vision. There were other details in the picture, though, the edges showed a couple of shadows and a shoe of a woman. It seemed that there was more than one person responsible for her change. This was a clue, as vague as it was, but at least it was a place to start.
Chapter 6
The dust choked me as I gasped for air, the disruption on set by a draft seeping up through the wooden floor boards of the old church. A stench that very well could have been a dead rat filtered into my nostrils along with the particles that scattered abou
t. I could see the dry rain of grime waft in the air around me like some kind of low hanging cloud. I waved my hand through the air, struggling to find purchase in something more breathable, less hazardous to my health.
I heard a giggle from behind and slowly turn my body in its general direction. At first, there was nothing but shadows, but as my eyes adjusted to the dim light piercing its way through boarded windows I came to see his face. It was framed with blond hair and a certain boyish charm. His smile closely resembled a sneer in the dim light, or maybe it was a sneer, misunderstood by the small bout of laughter that escaped his throat.
"Who are you?" I choked out, half gagging as the grit settled into my throat. I needed water to wash it away, and my saliva was proving itself to be neglectful in my time of need.
There was no answer, only a listing of his body as if he was rocking himself from his perch in the corner of the room. Through squinted eyes I could see that he was settled upon a pew standing up on one end, his feet dangled several feet above the ground and his hands were wrapped around his body. He just sat and glared, stifling a laugh or a growl, the guttural utterance was so close in nature that I could not readily tell at the moment.
"I asked you a question," a boldness that I immediately started to regret fell from my lips. I was too scared to look away but too ignorant to force myself to anyway. He took my gleam as defiance and reacted. Within a short breath, he was above me, inches from my face as I lay upon my back, weak, and defenseless.
"What did you say?" he hissed. There was more to the way his words poured from him, something dark and sinister. I closed my eyes as tears welled up along the bottom lids. I felt his fingers, icy to the touch, come in contact with my cheeks. He wiped a tear away and brought the warm droplet of salty water to his tongue and tasted it. I cowered beneath him, expecting to be ripped apart in an instance.
With my eyes closed tight I heard a soft chuckle, draped in lunacy, and supported by indifference. I counted quietly to three before opening my gaze towards him again. I was met with solitude, a welcomed friend in the wilderness of my current plight. I looked around the room, slowly churning up the dust that had choked me earlier. My movements were slowed mostly by my frail form. I was weaker than a child, yet still having to support a man's frame. I quickly tired and collapsed back onto the floor and watched the dust settle over me once again.
"What do you make of this?" Maggie asked as we walked along the rusted train tracks. The old pine trees created a canopy that hid us from the sky above. The darkness entrenched us in its welcoming arms. The cool night air placed delicate touches upon our flesh that was soothing and reassuring. Our slow walk brought about the myriad of questions that needed answers, demanding some kind of assurance that we were born into this world by something more monstrous than the devil himself.
"To be honest, I do not know. But the fact that there was more than one vampiric entity in that photograph tells me that we needed to be looking for a group of individuals instead of a loner."
"That's reassuring," she said with more than a hint of sarcasm. She rubbed the image with her thumbs in the pale light of the moon. The details of the photo were lost in the faded image, but it was still evident that she was close to her death in this picture. It was possible that it was taken as some kind of record keeping for the immortals who created her. It defied my understanding, not that I had much experience with this second life. So much mystery and so little of it had been revealed in the few days since my awakening.
“We should head home,” she said turning to return to her truck. I followed suite and we pulled out onto the dark highway and headed back south. We continued our drive down the highway that followed the overgrown tracks, passing through another small town. A flashing red stop light pierced the opaque sky as the LEDs flared intermittently. The brightness felt like a small solar flare to my ill-adjusted eyes so I turned them away. The strobe-like effect illuminated the railing and granite rocks that were scattered about by time's neglect. My aversion to light seemed to be limited to a scorching sensation in my eyes. I had noticed it as the sunlight crept into Maggie's cabin earlier. I did not fear the sunlight as I thought that I would, instead I merely shielded myself from its lack of comfort and slept the day away. It was such a peculiar predicament, not at all as I imagined this life to be.
"What are you thinking about?" Maggie asked, disrupting the silent drone of our lighter than air footsteps.
"Misconceptions," I replied flatly.
"What kind of misconceptions?" she asked.
"This life is not what I had imagined it being. My thirst for blood is similar to my human thirst for water; the cravings will only take me so far. I am not biased on the supplier, as long as the demand is met. My strength is much more than my human strength, and my weaknesses are not what I thought that they would be. It is puzzling for me."
"You mean the myths from old books and movies? The garlic, and wooden stakes, the laughable drama that depicts our existence?" she laughed as she asked the questions. It was a precious sound; I was drawn to it in a way.
"That's exactly what I'm talking about," I said, content that she found the meaning to my ramblings.
"Think of it this way, when you were still alive as a human, did you ever have experiences contrary to what was expected?" she asked.
"In what way?" I asked.
"In the way of defying the norms of society. Befriending people who were not easily befriended. Accomplishing things not easily accomplished. Believing things that were not easily believable, things of that nature," she said.
I thought for a moment, "I suppose that I did."
"This is no different. Humans who have no idea what this life is like were the ones who wrote about it. Perhaps it made them feel safer to project those weaknesses into their myths. I had the same feelings as you when I first rose. I chose to accept what I was and moved on. I suggest you forget your preconceived notions and move on as well," Maggie said. I could not tell if it was a kind of mentoring or if it was just a dismissal of my fears by someone who would soon grow tired of hearing them.
"One last question?"
"Shoot."
"What is our weakness?" I asked not knowing where this might lead us.
Maggie stopped suddenly and turned to face me. I looked at her face as a blur of trees past through the window next to her and I watched a slight breeze shift the curls of her hair in front of her face. She gently pulled the hairs back behind her ears and spoke, "Our only weakness is having to live forever with a past that we can’t reclaim. Time moves farther away from our hearts, and we are merely islands secluded in its torrents, and manipulated by the strings of some grand puppet master. Do you want to know our weakness? It is living, outside of the confines of humanity, and cursed to dwell there for all eternity."
She looked away and continued driving south. I watched her rest her hands on the steering wheel and focus her attention on the drive, pushing out whatever troublesome thoughts had entered her mind at the time. Perhaps the true curse of a vampire was time. The enemy of mortality was also the enemy of the immortal. Were we destined to walk this earth forever? If so then I could not think of a better companion to endure it with.
Chapter 7
A token of friendship is one thing, but a token of vindictiveness is another. I clamored for the nearest exit, my strength had grown over the past week, and the vile predators had stayed at bay. At first, I had thought it curious, but I could see that there was some kind of hierarchy in their fold. The tall, dark haired male seemed to be their leader, and he had been missing for the most part. I could vaguely remember him speaking to the other vagrants about keeping their distance from me. It had worked, until now at least.
"Come on, take it," she said. Her voice was a sing-song swain of beauty and erotic lust that filtered from pursed lips straight into my heart. I felt my heart pick up the pace as she looked at me. Her 'come hither' gaze was unrelenting, I longed for her, and she for me. I knew it was true as I dragge
d my body across the hardwood floors. The bumps and bruises on my hands and knees fell away as ecstasy dug her claws into my hide. It was a kind of revival that this broken church had never seen before. I believed! I could feel the spirit descending, a welcome unlike any other, one that will be no more and never again.
Realization struck like a bell, a soft chime in the distance that brought me crashing back to reality. This was not something spiritual; this was something of horror, of fright. The hell spawns of Satan himself had enveloped me into their fold. Raised above their wicked heads, my body draped limply and poured my blood into the throats of ravenous beasts. It was over before I knew it. I didn't have a chance. I doubted that a chance was all that I needed to free myself from this damned state. My eternity was sealed with a kiss; the bitter kiss of betrayal, for their master could not save me now.
The cabin left undisturbed during our trek, welcomed us into its warmth. The fireplace in the living area was slowly choking out the embers of the log that had been placed there before my arrival the night before. Despite this, I could still feel the smoldering ash radiating the heat from the dying flames.
Maggie stalked over to the reclining chair and fell into it lazily. The picture had never left her hands and there it still remained. She turned on the lamp next to her and studied it with the illumination of the room. The faded picture revealed many secrets cast in this new light, but it did not reveal the two mysterious guests exposed within the four by six image.
I sat on the loveseat across from her and studied her as she looked at it, willing memories or something else just out of reach from her strained mind. The resiliency of the brain was a blessing and a curse. The ability to block out trauma did a great service to the human psyche, but when those memories needed to be unlocked to gain a better understanding of who we were, well that was a different story altogether.
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