For The Sake of Revenge_An Alaskan Vampire Novel

by DL Atha

  Gloria’s words replayed a continuous circuit in my head. The police report resurfaced in my mind’s eye, the words searing into my consciousness. The knowledge that Joel had been here today set me on edge and made my teeth rattle. Hearing his voice had only made it worse.

  Desperation can force you into some strange situations, allow you to believe in things you normally wouldn’t, and give you the ability to do things that on a routine day you’d never consider. And I was, above all else, a desperate woman.

  I had only three options. I could leave the island, like Peter and Gloria had recommended. Give in to the fear but stay alive and run for as long as I could stay ahead of Joel, and I knew he’d find me. Eventually. He’d promised I could never escape him.

  Or I could give in now, like I always had, and go back to Joel. Listen to his ridiculous logic that everything that had happened was my fault. How easy it would be to slip back into the role he’d taught me.

  My final option was to make my own way. Create a path that was as illogical and as ill-advised as the path that had taken me away from my home ten years ago. I wasn’t getting anywhere with the police, and I wasn’t going to change their minds. It was a dead end. If I wanted justice, I’d have to get it myself.

  Maybe it was the whiskey that still burned a path of liquid courage down my throat, or sheer desperation, or maybe it was a potent combination of both that caused me to take the first few steps to the fireplace.

  The blood undulated within the bottle with my motions as I shimmied the shriveled cork from out the mouth of the bottle. It clung stubbornly to the glass but finally released its hold. The tip crumpled in my fingers, but the inner surface that touched the blood pulled out whole like cork from a fine bottle of wine, looking as if it had been placed yesterday.

  I took a tentative sniff, expecting the accumulated smell of two centuries of rot to overwhelm my senses, but instead, only the scent of fresh blood wafted from the mouth of the bottle.

  Still, it was enough to be nauseating, and I held my breath as I lifted the bottle to my lips. Hesitating for a few long seconds, I finally tipped the bottle up, deciding to chug it and worry about the taste later.

  Three swallows was all I could manage, and I forced back nausea, placing a hand over my mouth to keep the fluid safely where it needed to be. I gagged harder, my eyes watering, and I could taste the blood all over again as it sloshed across my tongue and the flavor filled my sinuses. Clamping my hand over my mouth even tighter, I swallowed the blood back down against the stomach acid that had risen into my throat.

  Then I sat and waited. For exactly what I wasn’t sure. I guess I expected to hear the voice of the vampire whispering in my ear, see a vision, or something dramatic. Instead, nothing happened as I sat cross-legged in front of the fire.

  The house had warmed with the fire, a nice comforting glow that complemented the whiskey. My muscles, tensed from finding evidence of Joel on my porch, had finally relaxed; the kind of limp-noodle feeling you get after an adrenaline rush. I leaned forward resting my head in my hands, giving into the warmth that coursed through my body and stared deeply into the undulating flames of the fire, letting my mind go where it wanted.

  My head still ached slightly from whacking my head the night before, and I lay back against the couch, setting the bottle of blood to my side. I sighed with the warmth of the fire on my skin after the chill of the day, and I felt my eyes began to drift closed. I didn’t object, letting the world go dark around me.

  Chapter 6

  For once, sleep came easily, and I dreamed of average, forgotten things that made no sense; the small dog Joel and I had kept for a few years, doing laundry at the dilapidated coin-operated laundry on a dirty Seattle street, and the Chinese diner that had the best eggrolls a few blocks from our apartment. We’d go there when he was having a good night.

  I dreamed of the towels I’d bought with his first small paycheck, and the night I used them to clean up my own blood the first time he hit me. The stains never came out, but Joel wouldn’t let me throw them out. He said the stains would remind me not to ever cross him. I dreamed of his hands stroking my cheeks and remembered how his fingers curved around my neck. I dreamed of the carnations he usually brought in the next day to say he was sorry and how the blooms wouldn’t have even faded before he’d done it again.

  But somewhere in the images of the mundane, my dreams turned towards the bizarre. I could see Joel ahead of me on a mountain trail, zigzagging while he ran frightened in the other direction. I chased him, pelting him with questions about Mom, pleading with him to stop. But looking over his shoulder, he screamed, flecks of spit flying from his mouth as he continued to run from me.

  It made no sense; it was normally I who was running from him. Confused, I stopped chasing him, and he was soon out of sight.

  It was late afternoon in my dream; the sun was struggling against the weight of the clouds, and the forest above me shaded out a good portion of what light there was. I’d chased Joel along a trail that followed the curvature of the mountain. The elevation gain had been steep, and I was breathing hard.

  Around me, the wind had picked up and a light, dry snow was blowing. Shivering, I realized I didn’t have a coat, and I was barefooted. I rubbed my cold arms and frowned at the blue of my fingertips. Low-hanging clouds trailed across the mountain and, along with the setting of the sun, began to obscure the mountains in front of me.

  A movement to my left caught my eye, and turning, I saw my mother standing on a rocky outpoint of the trail. She was leaning far over, her body unbalanced, as she stared at the jagged crags below her.

  “Mom!” I shouted, struggling to get to her. I looked around suspiciously, expecting to see Joel, but he was either not here or, at least, I couldn’t see him.

  “What are you doing?” I asked. I reached for her, trying to tug her away from the edge. But she was persistent and clung to the cliffs. “Mom, look at me!” I demanded. I was relieved when she finally turned towards me.

  I studied her face, tracing the lines that crinkled the corners of her mouth. She was still attractive but older than I’d ever seen her in life.

  “Mom, answer me!” I shook her gently. “What are you doing?”

  A worried look on her face, she pointed towards the forest trail. “What are you doing, Tam? You’re in too deep. Don’t go any further,” she pleaded, her voice rising above the wind.

  Behind me, the wind rustled and someone called my name. Still holding her by the shoulders, I turned for a moment, expecting to see Joel, but instead I found nothing and no one except the empty trail meandering back down the mountain.

  “Tamara, this is wrong,” she said. “You will lose far more than you will gain.”

  What is she talking about? I wondered. I tried to listen, to concentrate on what she was saying. I should know what she was referring to, but I couldn’t seem to put the thoughts together quickly enough. The voice spoke behind me again. I heard it, but more than that, I felt the reverberations coursing through my bones. My throat constricted, my breath caught.

  “I’ve already lost you, Mom. What more could I lose? He’s taken everything,” I muttered into the wind.

  “No. You still have your soul. Your innocence. Don’t let him take it,” she pleaded.

  I laughed—a sardonic sound. “Joel took those a long time ago.”

  “I’m not talking about Joel,” she responded, lifting her voice louder. But the voice behind me was overpowering, and I had trouble focusing. I looked over my shoulder, searching the forest for whoever was calling to me.

  Mom spoke again, but I couldn’t concentrate on her words as the voice whispered my name repeatedly. It was hypnotic, seductive, and turning, I dropped my hands from her shoulders and followed the voice back to the path.

  It led me back to the trail that cut a singular path down the mountain with no forks to the right or the left. Behind me, it seemed to disappear, leaving me nowhere to go but forward. Reaching a break in the trees,
I saw the coastline of Sitka sound spread out below.

  It was a naturally protected sound, and the waves lapped gently at the small exposed beach while the larger waves broke on the shores of the many small barrier islands, dotting the entrance to the sound. A handful of rotting logs, their bark stripped away by wind and water, broke up the monotony of the rocky beach.

  Having nowhere else to go, as this trail had no branch points, I kept to the path and was soon off the mountain and meandering through the remnants of the forest. The voice continued to woo me forward, and I followed it willingly.

  The heights of the mountain gave way to coastal plains, the spruce trees reaching their arms even higher to the heavens as the ground became softer and easier in which to dig their great roots. The dim light of dusk had now waned to complete darkness, and the forest around me became black. I stumbled on the uneven ground, my feet becoming entangled in the underbrush covering the forest floor.

  I felt trapped, as if the darkness itself had grasping hands, and I panicked for a few seconds, my hands beating desperately at the cold air before I remembered this could only be a dream.

  “I am no dream,” the voice whispered back.

  “Who are you?” I demanded into the thickening blackness. The presence pushed against me, pressing the air from my lungs and stealing my breath. It seemed alive, a cloying substance capable of trapping me between cold, hard hands.

  “My name was forgotten years ago, but yet you know me.”

  “What do you want?” I screamed into the walls of blackness that contained me.

  “Why question what I want? It is you who sought me out. What do you want?” the voice questioned.

  Perhaps it was my imagination that infused the voice into the vines of fog that twined their way around my feet, curling between my knees and snaking towards my hips.

  “It’s true,” I breathed into the fog, which crept in thicker than I’d ever seen. Real fear gripped me as the surgeon’s words came back to haunt me. The doctor had left to escape this voice.

  “It was not for truth that you have sought me out,” the voice answered. “And seek me you did, for I have had no human bonds in a century and a half.”

  “This was a mistake.” In my dream, I twisted on one foot, planning to escape the darkness and fog that had congealed around me. My chest felt heavy as if it was being crushed, but I could feel wakefulness just a short distance away. I turned to see it, a lighter spot in a sea of blackness, and began to move in that direction.

  “I can give you what you want.” The voice spoke again.

  “You don’t know what I want,” I said, but I stopped despite myself, waiting for the response.

  “You want what I want. To be free.”

  “What I want is to be strong. I’m tired of being weak and being the victim. I’m sick of being pushed around. I want him to pay.” I struggled to find the air to spit out my words as I slapped at the blackness around me.

  The pressure lightened somewhat; it became easier to breathe, and I sucked in large mouthfuls of air.

  “I will be your strength and everyone will pay,” the voice soothed.

  “What’s the price?” I questioned, already knowing the answer. Mom had warned me. My soul. My innocence.

  I waited for the response, searching the darkness in front of me for some indication of what watched me from within its thickness. But I could see nothing in the black of the night. Not even the outline of my hands when I held them in front of my face. The fog twisted itself farther up my body, curling around my trunk and then passing around my neck. Although it never touched my skin, I could feel its presence as it slithered around me.

  “The truly innocent never ask the price, for they are not willing to bargain,” the voice answered.

  “I am innocent,” I started to say, but what was the point? You can’t lie to the dead.

  Disgusted, I batted away the blackness enveloping me and pushed towards consciousness glowing on the horizon.

  I awoke with a slight start, my arms askew as if I’d been in a fight and my neck was sore from where I’d rested awkwardly against the couch. The fire was still burning warmly across the room, but my eyes wouldn’t focus and so the flames danced in a golden red haze. A thin line of perspiration clung to my hairline, and despite the heat of the room, I was cold.

  The house had taken on the quietness of night when even the appliances whisper their machinations. Only the occasional crack and pop of the fire broke up the stillness. I was alone, and yet I was not. In the background, I could hear a quiet roar.

  At first, I thought it was the silence of the house I was listening to, and I ignored it while I got to my feet. I drank the leftover coffee and threw another log onto the fire. I folded the quilt for good measure and put the journal up.

  Still the roar persisted, and I clapped my hands over my ears to relieve the pressure that had built in my head to a deafening crush. It only grew louder and I dug my fingers deep into my ears, not caring that my nails dug into the tender flesh. It was like my head was being held between two giant seashells.

  I tried the radio, but I could find no tune that would dampen the sound. I couldn’t concentrate on reading, and there was nothing on TV. The channels had gone off for the night, the high-pitched bleep and the rainbow display of colors signaling that I should turn the contraption off.

  Instead, I muted the blaring sound and stared at the rainbow on the screen, letting my eyes cross until it was a blur of colors. The roar continued in my head, and so I gave up trying to drown it out. I found myself listening instead.

  At first, it continued on as a single, monotonous sound with no variation, but as the minutes ticked by on the mantle clock, the roar separated out into peaks and valleys which eventually gave way to individual words.

  The voice was muffled, and I strained now to hear what an hour ago I’d tried to tune out. The syllables sounded foreign and yet familiar. Like the Russian I’d spoken in the dream. As the hour wore on, I began to recognize a pattern in the roaring voice, repeated syllables, but the words wouldn’t materialize. I couldn’t make them out.

  Frustrated, I strained harder to decipher the words but still nothing. When I thought I’d go insane with the effort, I tried to hear only the roar again, but I’d lost the ability. Now I could hear nothing but the repeated words. I couldn’t ignore them; still I couldn’t decipher the hidden message.

  Was this what the surgeon had been describing? He said he’d heard the vampire’s voice in tormented screams at night and in whispers during the day. What I was hearing was certainly more than a whisper, but not quite a scream. Either the blood had weakened with time or I hadn’t drunk enough to hear his shrieks.

  Two hours had passed with the constant stream of the vampire’s consciousness before I fully recognized what I’d done to myself. If you play with fire the saying goes, you’ll get burned. Well, my consciousness was singed now, and the smoke of my encounter was still stinging my vision.

  Determined to do the right thing for once, I grabbed the bottle of blood from off the mantle where I’d set it earlier. The cork, worn on the outer edges, crumbled a little more in my fingers, and instinctively I loosened the pressure of my grip.

  The doctor had warned that he didn’t know what would rise from the fluid if it were spilled, but I didn’t care so long as it wasn’t in my body. Proximity was my problem, and I didn’t want it anywhere near me.

  I opened the back door and stepped to the edge of the deck. The day’s thick snow spread out across the yard. It looked like a scene from Currier and Ives with the undisturbed snow glistening in the hint of moonlight playing hide and seek with the clouds.

  Behind the lawn, the mountains rose up in the background, hard walls of stone, their tips softened by rounded layers of snow. The spruce trees, glazed in ice, ringed the foothills and spread their branches out to hold hands, encircling the yard in a magical ring.

  It was a beautiful night. The rain and snow had disappeared for a w
hile and even the wind had quieted down. For once this month, the night was silent yet my mind reverberated with the mumblings of a man buried for two hundred years.

  Angered by the contrast, I flung the bottle as far as I could, my voice erupting in a howl with the effort. I didn’t watch where it went. I didn’t care. I didn’t want to know.

  It was just past three a.m., and despite having slept for only an hour, I was afraid to close my eyes again. The feel of the vampire’s presence and the sound of his voice in the dream were too fresh. His rumblings in my head made me anxious. It was like someone was behind me whispering, but when I turned to look over my shoulder, no one was there. I picked at my clothes and ran nervous fingers through my hair.

  What the hell have I done? I questioned over and over.

  My body begged for sleep. My mind prayed for rest, and that is where I found my only solace. While my mouth moved in prayer, his mumblings died away. I took advantage of the situation and poured another shot of whiskey. It landed with a heavy, hot thud in my belly, where it sunk even lower and wedged itself deep in my pelvis. Bands of warmth spread their way out until my limbs felt warm and heavy. My mind slowed but didn’t stop, and I downed another shot. My stomach burned clean through to my back but my brain gradually began to numb.

  My mouth was still moving in prayer when sleep finally took me.

  I was vaguely aware of being fitful the rest of the night. A strong male voice whispered to me, intertwining into my dreams. He spoke of eternal strength and youth. He tempted me with promises of revenge for anyone who’d hurt me. He spoke of power, and I wasn’t afraid anymore.

  In my dreams, the moon rose, a tiny sliver, in the clearest of nights. I chased falling stars across the night sky, careening from one mountaintop to another, laughing at the humans below me who struggled to see only a fraction of what I looked at.