I, Vampire

by Jean Marie Stine

  I, Vampire

  Spine-tingling Interviews with the Undead

  Edited by

  JEAN MARIE STINE

  &

  FORREST J. ACKERMAN

  A Sense-of-Wonder Classic

  A Renaissance E Books publication

  ISBN 1-929670-82-6

  All rights reserved

  Copyright 2001 by Jean Marie Stine and Forrest J Ackerman.

  All rights to individual stories assigned to the authors.

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission.

  For information contact:

  Renaissance E Books

  P. O. Box 494

  Clemmons, NC 27012-0494

  USA

  Email comments@renebooks.com

  By Moonlight, Copyright by John Gregory Betancourt.

  The Cage, Copyright by Dawn Martinez-Byrne.

  The Croquet Mallet Murders, Copyright by Kevin Andrew Murphy.

  The Captive Angel, Copyright by S. P. Somtow.

  A Poor Imitation, Copyright by David N. Wilson.

  Rock and Roll Will Never Die, Copyright by E. J. Gold.

  Runaway, Copyright by Darrell Schweitzer.

  Tipping Is Not the Name of a City in China, Copyright by Diana G. Gallagher.

  Two-Spirits, Copyright by Chris Moran.

  Vympyre, Copyright by William F. Nolan.

  Visiting the Neighbors, Copyright by Janrae Frank.

  The Wolf Creek Fragment, Copyright by Adrienne Martine-Barnes.

  DEDICATION

  TO

  Bram Stoker

  Bela Lugosi

  Christopher Lee

  &

  All Those Other Wonderful People

  Who Frightened Us To Death

  CONTENTS

  INTRODUCTION

  BY MOONLIGHT

  JOHN GREGORY BETANCOURT

  TIPPING IS NOT THE NAME OF A CITY IN CHINA

  DIANA G. GALLAGHER

  THE CAGE

  DAWN MARTINEZ-BYRNE

  RUNAWAY

  DARRELL SCHWEITZER

  ROCK AND ROLL WILL NEVER DIE

  E. J. GOLD

  THE WOLF CREEK FRAGMENT

  ADRIENNE MARTINE-BARNES

  VISITING THE NEIGHBORS

  JANRAE FRANK

  TWO-SPIRITS

  CHRIS MORAN

  A POOR IMITATION

  DAVID N. WILSON

  THE CROQUET MALLET MURDERS

  KEVIN ANDREW MURPHY

  VYMPYRE

  WILLIAM F. NOLAN

  THE CAPTIVE ANGEL

  S. P. SOMTOW

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  MORE ABOUT THE UNDEAD

  INTRODUCTION

  MEET THE VAMPIRES! For eons these denizens of the night have avoided human contact and shrouded themselves in secrecy.

  Today they are coming out of the closet along with everyone else. The worst are seen as helpless victims of an obsessive-compulsive disorder, driven by an irresistible craving for blood. The best, as noble figures who fight against this terrible craving, constantly seeking ways to overcome it, while suffering guilt every time they are forced to give in.

  Instead of wanting to terrify us, this new breed of vampires simply wants to tell us their stories. Instead of our blood, they want our understanding – even our forgiveness. Instead of taking our lives, they want to take our time.

  And we let them. Why?

  Throughout all recorded history, people have been fascinated by vampires. This fascination seems to be part and parcel of our fascination with death, dying and the mysterious unknown that lies beyond. Legends of undead creatures that return to life in the dark of night to feed on the living have been with us since the dawn of time.

  Not only does every culture have its variant, but tales of vampires are found on continents so widely scattered the stories can have no single common origin. Undoubtedly graves disturbed by wild animals and the many wasting sicknesses of ancient times account for most of these stories. More human monsters, still very much among the living, who fed upon the blood of their fellow mortals for the simple power or cruelty of it, probably account for the rest.

  Put this way, there seems to be nothing glamorous about vampires. And yet, the undead alone, of all the monsters that have haunted humankind, have exerted an enormous appeal over the popular imagination. The number of great novels about werewolves can be counted on one hand (without using all five fingers) .The number of great vampire novels stretches from Varney to Dracula to Saint-Germain.

  Perhaps more to the point, we are not merely fascinated by vampires – we envy them. How else can we explain the enduring popularity of the infamous Count and his ken. Undead, unbound by the constraints of social or physical laws, they are free to be everything we have been inculcated not to be: openly evil, openly sexual, openly powerful. Not to mention they possess some very nifty supernatural abilities: they can impose their will on others; enter any building by turning into mist; command the elements; mesmerize members of the gender they prefer most; transform themselves into bats, wolves and other creatures at a moment's notice; and best of all (when we were little kids), they sleep by day and party all night.

  When the vampire got staked at the end of the story, we were always a little sad to see him (or her) go – for a little of us went with them. We may have wanted the hero and heroine to escape-but, secretly, we wished we were the vampire. We might have imagined we'd solve the blood problem by feasting on bovine hemoglobin, raiding blood banks or doing away with those the world could do without. But it was the vampire we were one with, the vampire we wanted to be, the vampire at the center of the story – not its boring, puny human protagonists.

  Still, vampires were the bad guys, and we had to hide our fondness for (our desire to be) them. It was one of those shameful vices, like self-gratification, we felt we must conceal from the disapproving scrutiny of the world-at-large. To admit we identified with a blood-sucking demon who rose from her (or his) grave every night, would have marked us indelibly as "seriously weird" in the eyes of others.

  Yet women swooned when Bela Lugosi's eyes glowed hypnotic from the screen; and did so again, when Christopher Lee's optics performed similar perambulations. While men tingled to be fanged by any number of celluloid vampiresses, from Gloria Holden to Barbara Shelly.

  Then in a moment of desperation, Dan Curtis and Art Wallace, their boringly traditional gothic soap opera stalled in the afternoon ratings basement, introduced a vampire meant to be menacing. But when the actor's haunted delivery came across with more torment than menace, millions of fan letters began to pour in. The producers quickly shifted story-line, suddenly their vampire was no longer the shallow bloodsucker he'd started as in the early episodes. Now, he was a sensitive, Byronic hero, brooding eternally over the lives he was forced to take and the woman he had loved and lost centuries before.

  The vampire as protagonist (and often as hero or heroine) was born. Previous vampires like Dracula had gloried in bloodlust and slaughter, relishing the moment when they drew thirst-quenching life from their victim's throats. The new breed of vampire carried the angst of the modern world on their shoulders. Here, was clearly a vampire for contemporary times – one whose basic problem, an irresistible compulsion to a self-destructive act, was shared in some form by everyone.

  Given "good guy" (and gal) vampires, vampire lovers everywhere came out of the closet. The soap, Dark Shadows, became a world-celebrated success, and soon authors like Anne Rice, inspired by its example, began creating sympathetic vampires of their own. The world was hit by a flood of novels, stories, collections, movies and television programs about vampiric protagonists who are just like "thee and me" (though a bit nobler) i
n every way but one. And for the most part they are just as disturbed by that difference as we would be, and struggle just as hard to overcome it as we would.

  Plus these modern vampires possess all those wonderful powers we always envied-without having to be evil, exactly. No wonder we have fallen for these likable undead by the dozens. They enable us to enjoy our vampiric fantasies – guilt-free.

  We have invited them into our homes, asked them to sit by the hearth, pressed them to tell us their stories. And Lestat and his legions have responded. Of course, not all of the undead have proved exemplary characters – and not all of our interviews with them have proved so pleasant.

  Yet each encounter teaches us something about what it means to be dead and something about what it means to be alive. For vampires, the best and the worst, are only our human characteristics exaggerated: the way we feed on other forms of life, the way we drain energy from those around us, our greed, our violence, the way we selfishly put our own survival above all else. Their stories are only our stories writ large, seen "in a glass darkly" – but the reflection they hold up is true. No wonder the undead fascinate us so much. To paraphrase one of our greatest philosophers: We have met vampires, and they are us!

  So here are twelve never before heard interviews with today's undead, each conducted by one of our leading contemporary reporters on the bizarre, the fantastic and the strange and each written especially for this book. In each, the undead are allowed to tell their own stories uncensored and in their own words. Some of their tales are touching, some comic, some chilling, some deeply disturbing. But all offer us vital insights into the darker aspects of our times and our selves.

  Fangs for the memories!

  Forrest J. Ackerman

  Marie Stine

  Hollywood, California 1995

  BY MOONLIGHT

  JOHN GREGORY BETANCOURT

  EVEN BY MOONLIGHT, the farm looked like a disaster area.

  The barn had started to lean, so much paint had peeled off the main building that its walls looked like sun-bleached driftwood, and at least half of the outbuildings had collapsed. I drove forward slowly, my rental car nosing among the scattered clumps of rusted-out machinery like a reluctant explorer, until I reached the house's front step.

  They say you always come full circle, but it was hard to believe I'd spent the first eighteen years of my life here. How long ago had it been now? I thought hard and couldn't remember today's date, not the year anyway. Nineteen ninety something. August 14, I thought. Time didn't mean much anymore.

  It had been at least fifty years since I'd seen this place. Returning for my father's funeral had been hard enough; I'd hoped driving out to the farm one last time would be easier. I could have prevented it. I could have made him one like me. He didn't need to die.

  But he would have wanted it this way, him with his unsmiling Christian ways.

  I had an uneasy feeling, like I'd returned to the scene of some crime I'd committed, but of course that couldn't be true. I'd always been careful to cover my tracks; nobody could ever follow me here. Was it guilt? I could have laughed. My kind didn't feel guilt. Nevertheless I had the vague feeling I'd betrayed someone, left some promise unfulfilled.

  Shutting off the car's engine, I climbed out and paused, turning slowly, listening to the wind in the fields and the hum of insects. My darker senses took in the whole of the land around me, cataloging the living and the dead. A few gophers, a stray dog prowling the gully behind the house, birds drowsing safely in their nests, a snake languorously swallowing a mouse... And, farther away at the next farm over – old Man Jessup's place, but he'd be long gone by now – young lovers sat on the front porch, holding hands, kissing. I could feel the rising intensity of their passion.

  Abruptly I called in my vision. Business first, I thought. I walked up the creaking old steps to the front door and pulled out the key. The lock clicked, the door opened easily, and a musty, stale smell hit me in the face. I wrinkled my nose and stepped in.

  The carpets were dirty and worn through in places, the wallpaper was peeling, and the furniture looked broken and tattered. Even so, a lump rose in my throat. Less than I'd thought had changed in the years since I'd left.

  "Home," I whispered.

  I'd been born in this house, lived my first eighteen years here, and only escaped when I'd been drafted into the war...

  THE NIGHT IN 1944 when the German artillery shot my bomber down, we'd already dumped our cargo over Dresden.

  I had watched the city burning below and felt a vindictive sort of pride: take that, you bastards, I thought. For all the suffering, for all the innocents you've killed or enslaved, for all the terror and fear and death you caused, take that!

  Suddenly the plane lurched, but it wasn't like hitting an air pocket. We fell to the side – my buddy Lou on top of me, both of us all knees and elbows as we tried to right ourselves – and when we couldn't, I realized it was because the plane had tilted. We lurched again, and suddenly wind screamed in, along with an oily black smoke that made me gasp for breath.

  "Come on!" Lou shouted in my ear, and somehow we made to the hatch. He blew it open and pushed me out.

  I don't remember much after that. I think I must've hit my head. Somehow, though, my parachute opened and I made it to the ground safely, instinctively tucking and rolling like I'd drilled to do so many times.

  When I came up to my feet, several bright lights suddenly shone in my eyes. I raised a hand to shield my face, blind, afraid. Squinting, I made out half a dozen men in German uniforms with rifles leveled at my chest. I raised my hands. Their captain drew a large knife and stepped forward. I tensed, but he only cut the parachute away. Then he searched me and confiscated my pistol, knife, and survival kit. He tucked my cigarettes into his pocket and handed my wallet back after flipping through it once. I don't think the pictures of my mother and father interested him.

  "Namen?" he asked, pulling out a little black book.

  "Private Anderson, Tucker," I said, and recited my serial number. He jotted it down, then put his book away.

  "You are prisoner," he said in heavily accented English.

  "Come now."

  Turning, he led the way to a dirt road, where a dusty old truck waited. At his gesture, two of his men lowered the clapboard. I climbed in past two alert looking guards.

  "No talk," said the captain who'd found me. Then his boots crunched on the ground and he was gone.

  I leaned forward, straining to see my fellow prisoners. Had the Germans caught Lou? As best I could tell in the darkness, about half a dozen sullen men sat there with me. One of then moaned a little. I could smell blood and urine.

  "Hello?" I whispered. "Lou?"

  "Shh," the man next to me said softly in my ear. "The guards will give you a thrashing if they hear." He had a British accent. "We're all RAF," he added. "No other yanks in here, old boy."

  "Thanks," I whispered.

  "Smithers," he said softly, and we shook hands.

  "Tuck," I told him.

  He nodded and that was the end of it. I sank back a little. Lou wasn't here. He might have gotten away.

  It was a small comfort.

  IT WAS DAWN when the truck started. By the thin gray morning light, I could see my five fellow prisoners clearly for the first time. They looked as bleary-eyed and miserable as I felt. Smithers was a corporal, I saw. Nobody said anything; we just rode in a sullen, helpless silence under the watchful eyes of our two guards.

  After an hour or so, we came to a stop. Through the back of the truck I could see what looked like a small rail yard. Dense forest came down near the trucks about a hundred yards away. The guards lowered the clapboard and motioned us out. Stretching stiff muscles, we complied.

  Several boxcars were parked on the tracks waiting for an engine, I saw. The guards lined us up while they opened one, then loaded us into it like cattle. Dirty straw lined the floor, I saw when I stepped in. It smelled faintly of mold.

  "What about a docto
r?" Smithers called to the captain outside. "Can you get us a doctor? One of our chaps has a broken arm! You there…"

  The guards rolled the boxcar's door shut with a firm thump and I heard a bar being lowered into place. Luckily it wasn't dark inside. Blades of light slanted between the thick wooden slats of the walls.

  "Hey!" Smithers yelled.

  I heard boots walking away. We were alone.

  "Bastards," Smithers swore. He kicked the door for a little while, but it did no good.

  Everyone else was settling down on the straw. I hadn't realized how drained I was; when I lay down, I fell asleep almost at once, but not easily and not deeply.

  TWICE THAT DAY the guards opened the door, once to serve a kind of lunch – a thin greasy stew and stale bread – and once to replace the latrine bucket in the corner. Each time Smithers tried to talk to the Germans about Carter, the man with the broken arm, but they either didn't understand or weren't interested in anything but their immediate task.

  There didn't seem to be much else we could do but make the poor devil comfortable. Carter seemed in a kind of fever dream, talking or moaning every now and again, sometimes thrashing about, and I thought that sleep was probably the best thing for him. He wouldn't be aware of his pain. We took turns sitting beside him, talking soothingly if he moaned, trying to make him as comfortable as we could. He seemed to be growing steadily worse despite everything we did.

  "He'll be dead by morning," I heard one of the men mutter. Smithers shot him an angry look. "None of that," he said.

  "He's a strong lad, our Carter. He'll pull through."

  That evening the Germans served the same sort of greasy stew again, and after we finished, they brought in another three British prisoners. I wondered if that was a good or a bad sign for my friend Lou.