by Lee McGeorge
He could sense it right outside the front door. He didn’t dare look through the spy hole, nor did he need to. He knew it was there.
He backed away slowly into the lounge. The candles were still burning. He snuffed them and left the lights off to hide in darkness.
Ildico was coming. She would have to take her chances. That thought made him sick in his stomach. His heart was already pounding, his shirt sweat through and his hands shaking, but the thought of sitting here scared whilst Ildico was attacked was too cowardly to allow. He backed himself into the far corner and crouched down holding the knife ahead of him.
He strained his hearing, trying to pick out any sound at all. If he heard Ildico shout, he would come out. That was the rationale; if he heard Ildico being attacked outside of his door, he would come out with this knife to help.
Then he realised that it wasn’t Ildico who was in danger. From the far corner of the room, he could see the entrance to the lounge but not the entrance to the apartment; yet without being able to see, he knew, he just knew, that the vampire was now inside the door.
The moment of truth was arriving. Please Ildico, arrive now. Ring the bell so it goes away.
Looking across the room he could see smoke rising in little eddies from the extinguished candle wicks. The eddies of smoke stopped swirling about four feet from the ground and made a fine layer of mist across the room.
The vampire stepped into the darkened lounge and looked at him.
It was really here. Standing only a few feet away. In darkness, it was the eyes which could be seen more than the man. Those eyes glowed as though they collected every last photon of light in the room and reflected it back.
Paul tried to say, ‘you’re not real’, but it came out as an unintelligible croak. The vampire stepped carefully towards him disturbing the layer of smoke. “You’re not real. You’re not real. I know you’re not really here. I’m just imagining it.”
The vampire stood over Paul. He knew he could try and stab it in the leg but the action would be lost and wasted.
“You’re not real.”
He cried, tears beginning to stream. It was the end and he could feel himself giving up. There was nowhere to run. He was pinned to a wall. The creature ahead of him was impossible to defeat in any physical sense. “You’re not even real.” he croaked again.
The vampire wrapped its fingers around his coat and lifted him up the wall to go eye to eye.
It was hopeless. Terrifying. Excruciating. He wouldn’t let it torment him or kill him but he was out of options.
“Leave me alone!” he yelled as he cut across its shoulder. The vampire stared at him blankly, impassively. “You’re not even real.” Paul made a hard slice on its shoulder again, cutting firmly across the trapezius muscle between shoulder and neck.
The vampire grabbed his hand with the knife and squeezed, crushing his fingers. It was painful. So painful. He wanted to cry out but couldn’t. He wanted to yell at it again, say it wasn’t real, deny its existence. But it was here, pressed against him, crushing his hand. He couldn’t deny it any longer.
The vampire was real.
Vampires really exist.
----- X -----
Opening the door was hard. He knew it was Ildico, he just didn’t want to see her. He did and he didn’t. He wanted someone to be with him, he needed reassurance. He didn’t want her to see his face banged up. He’d taken his shirt off to try and stem the blood running from the wound on his shoulder. He didn’t want her to see him like this.
Reluctantly, he turned the lock. He needed help, his cognition was still intact enough to see that, he knew rationally he needed someone to help him; but with these bloody injuries he was embarrassed.
“Hi, I’m glad you ca... Oh, My God! What happened?”
Paul couldn’t find any words or any impetus to speak. He made a very slight shrug and a miniscule shake of the head. He stared down. He didn’t want to talk about it.
Ildico came into the apartment with haste and closed the door. Her coat was coming off, she was leading him to the bathroom, unrolling toilet paper and pressing it to his shoulder.
“What happened?” she asked several times.
“I think I cut myself,” Paul said sheepishly, humiliated. “I can’t really explain it.”
Ildico pressed a wad of toilet tissue to the wound on his shoulder and placed his hands over it for him to apply pressure. “I mean to your face, what happened to your face?” she added. “You look like a big accident.”
“Oh, that.” Paul almost grinned. Almost. He didn’t quite have the energy to smile but the answer somehow alleviated the shame. “That was Nealla.” On saying his name Ildico visibly shrunk as a small but significant part of her collapsed in defeat. She leaned back and sat down on the toilet, using it as a chair. Her elbows rested in her lap and her head hung low as she mumbled something in Romanian. “But don’t worry about Nealla,” Paul continued. “He’s nothing, he’s... beaten.”
Ildico looked up at Paul then scanned the bathroom. There were blood drops splashed in the sink and a few spots on the mirror. The kitchen knife was propped behind the taps to the sink. “What happened to your neck?” she asked looking at the knife.
Paul shrugged and looked away. He looked to the vampire standing only three feet to his left. He made eye contact with it; they stared at each other for a few seconds knowing Ildico couldn’t see anyone else in the bathroom. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Paul said.
“Do you have something to make this, to cover it?” She motioned to the bleeding wound.
“I have a first-aid kit in the bedroom, I’ll get it.”
“No. I’ll get it,” Ildico said, going quickly.
Paul leaned back against the wall. The cold of the tiles against his skin brought pain and discomfort but he had little strength to move away, there was no reflex action or impulse. He listened to Ildico rummaging in the bedroom. Poor girl, he thought, having to put up with this shit.
As he leaned against the wall he examined his face in the mirror. Except it wasn’t his real face, it had his features but there were traits of the vampire’s face in there too. He looked bruised and swollen, his lips in particular looked fat and an angry welt by his left eye was prominent, but beyond that his skin was draining of colour and he couldn’t see details to his eyes. They were becoming two dark holes. Windows of the soul. Windows you wouldn’t want to look into.
Paul glanced to his left as Ildico returned. The vampire wasn’t here anymore. It never was, he knew that now. It was something else, not a physical presence, but rather a figment of his fertile imagination. He thought he’d cut it with the knife, instead he’d cut himself. The layers of fabric from his shirt and coat had provided just enough insulation to stop him needing hospital treatment, but there was no getting around the fact that he’d cut himself whilst hallucinating.
Ildico returned with the small first aid kit, a bright red pocket sized pack with emergency travel supplies of a few plasters, bandages, etc. She used the toilet seat as a table and knelt on the floor to rummage through the contents. Abruptly, she stopped to ask, “When did Nealla hit you?”
“When? This evening. A few hours ago.”
“And where did it happen?”
“Here. In the lobby, he was waiting. I think he had been waiting some time.”
Ildico put a hand up to her eyes and sniffed. She was crying. She mumbled a few sentences in Romanian then collected toilet paper to wipe her eyes.
Paul looked down at her, kneeling at his feet, crying. There were a few drops of blood in the sink. The kitchen knife was there. He could take it and drive it into the back of her neck. He could entice her to stand then throw her in the bathtub, climb on top of her and stab her repeatedly to make a bloody mess in a way that was easier to clean up. She was served up on a platter, ready to be carved for his pleasure. That feeling of mastery, of pure masculinity, of having the power to end a life on a whim. Power. Control. It was his for
the taking and seeing her broken emotionally made his body flush with a sexual desire for her. He wanted to fuck her and kill her. He wanted to slice slowly across her throat as she screamed in terror.
“Fucking Nealla,” she said as she stood.
Paul snapped out of the daydream cognitively but not emotionally. Reality returned, he was fantasising about killing Ildico. His cognition would stop him doing it, he knew he couldn’t get away with it, he knew it was stupid, but he wanted to none the less. Oh, how sweet it would be to cum inside of her as she bled out.
It was only a fantasy, he would never do it really, his cognition would stop him first.
Would his cognition stop him? Really?
He’d just cut himself whilst hallucinating that a vampire was here. His memory was untrustworthy, his violence ideation was spreading into real life and he was fantasising about raping and murdering Ildico using the knife that was two feet away.
“I can control it,” Paul said calmly, really believing he could.
“You can control what?” Ildico took his hands and lifted the now blood soaked wad of tissue away from the cut to his trapezius. “You can control what?” She had prepared a long strip of sticking plaster but stopped for a moment to let him answer.
“I can control... Nealla, don’t worry about him.”
Ildico frowned as she stretched the plaster from his back to his collar bone. She stared into his eyes, tears in hers. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. Her fingers lifted and delicately touched his swollen lips. “I’m sorry for what he has done.”
Paul made a tiny shake of the head as if to say ‘it doesn’t matter.’
“He told me,” she said as two fresh streams of tears fell over her cheeks. “He told me that if I would be his girlfriend, he would leave you alone.”
Paul almost chuckled and waved his hand to indicate his banged up face. “You turned him down.” As he watched Ildico’s torment he realised that she was feeling a level of guilt that was misplaced but very real for her. “Hey, wait. You can’t succumb to blackmail like that. Nealla is weak, he wants you so badly that he’s resorting to threats and violence. But he’s weak. He’s weak.”
He wrapped his arms around Ildico and pulled her into a hug. She cried a little more and he felt her tears against the bare skin of his chest.
“He’s weak,” Paul said again with a sly smile.
“He is weak.”
It was true. Nealla was weak. And against what Paul was becoming, Nealla didn’t stand a chance.
PART IV
Paul was lying in bed. Ildico was cuddled up behind him. She had agreed to stay when he asked her but she hadn’t undressed to sleep. He was wearing only shorts, she was still wearing her jeans and a cotton vest top. She was spooned behind him and he could feel the denim of her jeans on the back of his legs. He was sweating, unable to rest. Ildico was breathing softly into a small patch between his shoulders that felt cold and uncomfortable, but he wasn’t going to move. The only thing he had of security in the world was Ildico behind him.
His injured trapezius muscle felt strange; the idea of the injury was worse than it really was but it still made him wince to think he’d sliced across it. The damage was minimal and superficial, but the realisation of what he’d done was debilitating. He’d sliced his own neck whilst fighting a figment of his imagination.
“It is the strigoi,” Paul whispered to the sleeping Ildico. “Exactly like you told me.”
Ildico shuffled in her sleep.
“I was wrong.”
Paul closed his eyes. He had barely the energy to keep his eyes open yet the dark behind his eyelids was far more worrisome than the dark in the room. In the apartment, in the real world, there was little to do him harm. What he knew now, was in his mind, in his own subconscious was something that was pure wanton destruction. It was pain and suffering and misery.
It was an infection of some kind. That much he could say rationally and believe.
Whether the infection was a supernatural strigoi or a natural pathogen that swelled his brain he could never know for certain, but it didn’t matter. The cause was less important than what he was understanding now. The whole thing, the idea of a mythology surrounding an illness was far too simplistic. There was more to this vampire idea than he could ever have imagined. It was complex and sophisticated, something to be puzzled over and debated and examined and explored.
Being a vampire, he had realised, was entirely psychological. There was something that triggered it, some impetus to begin the transition from ordinary man to vicious lunatic. Ildico called it a strigoi or a dark spirit, Paul had imagined a parasite or bacteria of some kind, but whatever it was it had unlocked something that been repressed in his own mind. But that thing, that repressed self, had always been there. The strigoi didn’t cause this, it merely released it.
The vampire was within him.
He was born with it, as are all men.
He reached over to check the time; two thirty in the morning. The cockerel normally started crowing a little before five. A few hours remaining to try and get some sleep but it was unlikely to happen. The events of today had pushed him over the red line. If all that had happened was the attack from Nealla then perhaps he could have lived with that, but when coupled with crazy hallucinations, running around in the snow having delusions, physical injury and self harm, it was time to get professional help.
What about the book?
Fuck the book, write it elsewhere.
What about the money spent on rent and utilities for six months in advance?
Fuck the money.
What about the vampire he had running around in his head?
That was a harder one to reconcile. There was no running away from that. All he could do was think about it, try to rationalise it, try to think of a coping strategy. The vampire was just his own basal savagery and Paul understood that now with some clarity. With that understanding came the belief that he could control it. At least, he could control it as things stood, he could control it in its present form. If it got stronger, he wasn’t so sure.
His mind wandered, piecing the fragments together into a rational story; he was exploring the logic of what, where, how and why of this thing. He spoke to himself with an inner monologue as though he was a mentor talking to a student, giving a lecture on vampires to himself. The core idea, he continually said to himself, was that somewhere in the past of humans, way back along the evolutionary ladder, back before Neanderthals, before Homo Habilis, before we walked upright, before we came down from the trees, there was a time when we were at our most brutal. It was the time we lived as hunters, killing other animals and tearing at their warm flesh with sharp teeth. Killing as a means of survival. Fierce, savage, growling beasts that lived in a world without rules or laws or social conventions, where the only way to survive was to kill your next meal before it killed you. The minds of these animals were primitive and instinctive, they slaughtered without thinking, without compassion. This primal savagery, this state, this basal, low and unthinking mind is what the word ‘vampire’ describes.
He could see it all laid out simply and elegantly. It was beautiful in its own way. Somewhere within each of us, that savageness lurks but for most people, the vampire is dormant. Locked in the primitive regions of the brain. Gradually, over time, the brain grew and developed, adding layers of complexity. Language, logic, emotion, comprehension, analysis. Solitary hunters formed groups and developed strategies for survival based around cooperation, they developed social structures, hierarchies. But underneath it all, despite their evolutionary progress and ascent, somewhere deep beneath the layers there still lay the instincts of a ruthless predatory killer, a creature that had only two aims in life, sex and violence. Survival in its rawest sense. That instinct was the vampire. For most people it will never stir or cause trouble, but there could be times when this dormant aggression could be called upon. Special situations requiring absolute savagery. A fight to the death for example. If
someone was trying to skewer you with a sharpened blade in order that they stay alive themselves, would you not, in a state of panic, try to stab them first? A life or death scenario of extreme stress could unlock the more primal states.
Paul could remember reading that in survival situations, ordinary people will kill other people for food after six or seven days of starvation. If that was true then it was a revealing part of the vampire mechanism.
His own basal psychology was no longer dormant, sitting quietly in the background and controlled by rational thought and emotion. His vampire psyche was up front and taking control.
He couldn’t let it take complete control. He had to fight it. He had to resist. He had to keep his wits about him long enough to seek medical help. It wasn’t worth trying to get help in Romania. ‘Hello, I think I’m infected by a strigoi.’ That wasn’t worth trying. It had to be London. Get home, get help, get better.
Paul turned in bed to look at Ildico. She shuffled towards him and in her sleep put her hand on his flank. He felt weak and needy, asking this woman, this girl, to stay with him and hold his hand. He knew that without her here to keep him steady, he would have been running on all fours and howling at the moon by now.
It was interesting to see how she came into her own when faced with a crisis. She exhibited a soft power, a strength of character he hadn’t imagined her to possess. He suspected she had a secret liking to the situation. When faced with an injury requiring first aid she jumped into action and showed that she could take charge and be useful and important and a person of merit. Paul saw the storytelling logic to that. Put people under pressure and watch as their true character reveals itself. Put Ildico under pressure and she takes charge and faces things. He thought about what he was doing, he was under pressure, he was facing something. What did it reveal about his own true character? He was running away, abandoning his writing dream and fleeing with tears in his eyes as a failure.
