The Midnight Muse

Byron Chekhov didn’t have a crucifix handy when I slithered in through his living room window and scuttled across the ceiling.
The heavy die cast metal stand of an original series USS Enterprise struck my brow and briefly opened a wound to let out a sluggish flow of pale ichor before it quickly healed up again.
His second weapon was more effective: he held up before him a genuine Russian Orthodox icon of a Nativity which had belonged to his mother. A garish mixture of colours burned at my undead flesh; acid green, rose pink, gold leaf and glossy black.
It was like being whacked in the soul with the Nineteen-Seventies.
I backed off a bit, and glanced around a room that I had known so well when I was alive. It hadn’t changed much since my murder. Byron’s home was a shrine to pop culture. He’d covered his main wall entirely with photos, postcards, posters and second-hand tickets of his pentagram of obsessions: Star Trek, Sandie Shaw, Charlie Springall, Universal Studios horror movies and the Goon Show. You couldn’t put your hand onto a flat surface anywhere without knocking over a plastic Klingon or an unidirectional boomerang, or without disturbing a glitter ball or rattling a puppet on its strings. His book and record shelves overflowed with the kitsch of three generations; portraying and relating the hidden stories behind so many songs, films, and broadcasts.
Byron knew more about the Goon Show than Spike Milligan had. He knew more about it than God. Byron Chekhov knew more about the Goon Show than Prince Charles does. He could be a little obsessive, sometimes.
My gaze lingered for a moment on the corner that idolized the Universal horror of the 1930s. Henry Pratt was there, of course: the daddy of them all, in his classic roles of Frankenstein, The Mummy and the Ghoul. Lon Chaney Junior as the Wolfman and Bela Lugosi as the White Zombie completed the Hollywood Big Five monsters of Golden-Era cinema horror. I smiled at Byron; I thought nicely, but given his choice of films and his actions so far, I was afraid he wouldn’t believe me to be at all friendly.
‘What are you?’ he asked, holding the icon up higher like a fan at a televised rock concert saying Hello Mum.
‘I’m a vampire, Byron,’ I replied.
‘“A vampire?”’ he asked, ‘As in the ghost stories?’
‘“A vampire,”’ I corrected, ‘As in murdered by a fiend and reborn as an unnatural thing of animated carrion; doomed forever to stalk the night in search of blood while also carefully avoiding the smell of the customers of ethnic restaurants.’
‘Vade retro, Satanas!’ he yelled, waving the icon frantically in my face.
‘Look who’s talking ,’ I shot back and nodded towards the Hello Angel album poster and a Romulan wig and ear set. ‘Anyway, I’m not here to steal any of your blood. It can now be bought from willing donors in return for personal services in the trousers department and you’re a boy and I’m not the sort who likes to breakfast at the Y.’
I took out a packet of Wrigley’s Spearmint. In my condition, evening breath is a big problem. The action seems to relax him, and so I hopped down onto the carpet and thence to his armchair.
‘What happened, Mike?’ Byron asked, sitting at last on the armrest of a sofa by the kitchen door. He looked meaningfully at the Wrigley’s but I refused to take the hint; if he still daren’t approach me then I wasn’t going to offer. He could have my gum when he took it from my cold, dead hands.
‘You shouldn’t call me “Mike” any more. When we pass into the Shadow Life we have to take on new vampire names. Usually they consist of something spooky and gloomy, plus the name of the place where we are drained and reborn. I’m still a very Lancashire vampire; you’ll be glad to know.’
‘What did you choose?’ he asked, beginning to relax at last. ‘Varney Oswaldtwistle?’ He smiled hopefully. ‘Eccles Ruthven?’
‘Adonais Blackburn, as it happens, but that’s not important just now.’
‘What is it, M-, Adonais? Why are you here?’
‘I’ve come about your writing, Byron.’
'What about it, then?’
‘I’d like you to do some, that's what.’
I sighed. Of course it was a theatrical sigh – breathing was no longer necessary for my survival. Convenient that, you might think; but not very convenient alongside the fact that rosy-finger’d dawn now meant a ten-second melanoma for me and five busy minutes with a Dyson and a Jaycloth for someone else.
I waved at his book-shelves, on top of which lay a dozen or so manuscripts. Byron is a funny writer. A really, belly-burstlingly funny writer. He can write in any genre and on any topic and make you laugh. He can write pretty much anything and make it funny.
Except an ending.
Or a middle.
Or a second chapter.
Or titles.
Titles… Yes, I’d been of some help there, back in the day. Back in the day when I had days. Byron had all the ideas; the zany, off-the-wall, over-the-top and outside-the-box-and-off-his-trolley weird hilarious ideas; all the hyphenated good stuff. But he couldn’t title them. It was like that Radio Four sketch with Shakespeare’s marketing man. Remember? Shakespeare did the plays themselves, but he could never name them attractively, and so his mate stepped in to do the titles when they both agreed for example that These Two Geezers From Italy Somewhere was not going to hack it on the broadsheets or the Town Crier’s lips.
Top of Byron’s to-do stack was a fraction of a novel. It was going to be the frank and funny account of the concert tour of an all-girl reconstructed ancient and mediaeval musical instrument band. Their lives; their loves; their plunging-cleavaged velvet bodices and their flowing hair extensions. It was to have been The Mediaeval Baebes On Tour: Naked. Yes. Oh, yes. I used to pray that they’d film it one day – back when I could still pray without my lips and tongue blistering and burning. Byron had supplied the plot and the characters and the dialogue. I’d suggested the name of the band; Fashionably Lute, and the book title; Congenital Lyres. It consisted of three pages and four lines of utterly brilliant literary allusion, drop-the-book-with-giggling gags, and suburban smut. I’d laughed my bollocks off whilst reading those three pages and four lines, and laughed for long minutes thereafter. That was when I still had breath for Byron to steal. And there it was three years later; still exactly three pages and four lines long. Like me, it had died. It was still recognizable and full of happy memories of potential. But it was unchanged despite the years that had passed. Just like me.
Next manuscript down was another of his genre-blending treats: Goon Show meets the Cold War. Based on the premise that Neddy Seagoon and an absconding Wernher von Braun set up a cramming school in late Nineteen-Forties Brighton to squeeze dopey upper-class kids through their science exams and into Oxbridge. The institute was simultaneously used by clueless MI5 officers to train their agents in the arts of disguise and also by KGB spies trying to introduce moles into English universities and thence up the social ladder to positions of influence in the Establishment. It was also staffed by a US Army agent trying ham fistedly to recruit von Braun back into Operation Paperclip which he had left after artistic differences that had involved too much cowboy music and not enough good quality sausage. After a series of accidents and misunderstandings this hapless crew manages to acquire for the Institute a wholly unearned reputation for scientific brilliance and cutting-edge space-race inventiveness and, well, it doesn’t take a genius to see where this gormlessness and confusion was all leading…
It was going to be a contender – it really was – for a radio play competition, and all Byron needed was to finish the bloody thing and give it a title. A title! It was so obvious. It was staring him in the face. It wasn’t hard; really it wasn’t, but even when I told him he still didn’t use it and finish the play; he decided instead to concentrate for a while on his glittering career in the bank handing out cheque-book request slips and asking the customers about their mortgages.
‘Nothing wrong with my writing,’ muttered Byron.
‘No, there isn’t,’ I agreed. ‘I love the stuff, but you’ve got to get out there and do some. Finish it. Sell it. You’ve even got a marketable name for a writer. It Googles perfectly; especially since the competition. It’s instantly recognizable and it's even your real name, like Elvis Presley or Charlie Springall or Henry Pratt. It’s a great name to be famous with. Why, the Mayor of London is simply just known as “Pratt”, and you can’t get much more recognizable than that.’
‘It’s not always that good a name,’ he said.
I could see his point. It can’t have been easy growing up in the less multicultural parts of Luton with a moniker like Byron Chekhov. Luton has a lot of funny parts, they say.
‘I supposed you’ve had your hassles over the years, getting people to spell Chekhov properly.’
‘Yes,’ he agreed moodily. ‘Spelling Chekhov eventually becomes a problem.’
‘"Eventually?" Eventually after what?’
‘Eventually after about two years trying to persuade you buggers to stop calling me Brian. Still, it could have been a lot worse.’
We were quiet for some moments, thinking about Byron’s elder brother, Shirley.
‘Look I’m here to act as your muse. Life goes on. Even death is not the end, and I don’t fancy spending eternity with your only ever having completed one work.’
He’d come so close to winning another big literary prize, for first-time novelists. I’d absolutely loved it. The Magic Roundabout Five-O thing had had it all; wit, pace, irreverence, oodles of depth and a singing, surfing, wise-cracking police dog. For once, it even had a title of Byron’s devising that actually worked: Book ‘em, Danot.
Week by week we listened to his accounts of the knockout literary competition. His friends all thought it was in the bag and that the big time awaited. He was one of the final two contestants of Fiendish Plots (lame, lame, lame!) and we believed that was that. Job done. Game over. Pass around the champagne and invite us to the Blackwell’s author's signing with free buffet, bar and grill.
Then disaster struck. The senior judge, the jowly straight male love-interest from Dixon of Dock Green in the Twenty-First Century, fancied the opposition; a pallid social worker from Grimsby who specialised in grief counselling the bereaved and elderly former pet owners of Lincolnshire .
He must have influenced the other judges because the 2006 Angling Times / Fiat Punto Prize for Original Fiction went to The Wholefood Hobbit.
The Wholefood Hobbit itself went straight to the remainder bins and its cow of an author is now an F-list celebrity who divides her glittering life in the Republic of Letters between the polyester blouse and pleated skirts spot on a Welsh-language shopping channel and penning increasingly desperate and infeasible confessional pieces with titles like My 100 Parma Violets A Day Hell for Goodbye Magazine. The only chance on Earth she now has of opening a supermarket is if she approaches a closed and shuttered one at midnight with a crow-bar. If she does, I’ll be waiting for her. The bitch.
‘Mike. Adonais. I appreciate this, I really do. I just can’t do it any more. I just can’t start and finish my writing any more. It’s just gone.’
My friend really looked down in the dumps. He needed help. He needed inspiration. He needed a damn good kicking. I considered doing the bad-vampire-face act with the big black pupils and the twisty fangs and the snubbed-up-bat-nose like you’ve walked too quickly into Boots whose excessively Windolened automatic doors are neither working nor open. But Byron has an artistic temperament and sometimes it takes hours – and gallons – to talk him down so that he’ll listen to sense. And then he’ll likely forget your advice or just do something else. It was nearly nine o’clock and his girlfriend Liz might turn up at any minute. She was a formidable and protective woman who carried a pointy wooden walking-stick and she might think me suitable for a bit of improvised cardio-thoracic carpentry. I’d just have to inspire the lad and then skedaddle.
‘Look Byron,’ I said, reasonably. ‘You’ve always had more literary talent in your little finger than I have in my whole body.’ Pause. ‘Of course, that’s now true of haemoglobin, too. Anyway. You can write. Now you know there’s a real supernatural world, why don’t you try your hand at some horror stuff, at least? There’s a huge market for it, and lots of opportunity to cross over into films and other media.’
‘I’ve never really liked all that Dennis Wheatley rubbish, and I don’t do jute. Sorry, Adonais. It’s just silly.’
I looked at his balsawood Galileo and the bent assegai. ‘Right. “Silly”.’
I paused again. I’d never quite understood either how anaemic kids with no upper-torso development or visible body hair; obsessed with revenants, consumptive aristocrats and bricked-up teenage heirs had named themselves after an invading nation of muscular, tattooed, and bearded Germanic barbarians. Time for that sigh, and a closed-mouth smile, as breakfast was two hours in the past and I was getting a bit long in the tooth.
‘All you have to do is write about what you know, and who you know, and add in an element of the bizarre or supernatural, and you’re away. Just change the names and a few details and maybe alter cultural history a bit, and make one or two references so obscure that your readers have to go to Wikipedia for answers. Stick in a timely political joke or two and you’re on the way. Go on, Byron, give it a try. You can’t go wrong. ’
He was quiet for a long time. Then he turned to face me.
‘Okay, then, Adonais. I’ll give it a go. I will. I can so do this. I've got the ideas and the style and the originality-...'
'And I'll protect you from any threat from humility.'
'Only…’
‘Only what? Anything, Byron. I’ll do anything to get that damned word processor going again mate, you know that.’
‘Just to get me started, can’t you give me some horror-type titles. Like the old days? Just to bounce ideas off my head?’

And so I did, and here they are:

The Greyfriars Murders.

So Fifteen Decades Ago.

I was a Teenage Adolescent.

Scouting For Boys And How To Cook Them.

The Car Of Gifford Hillary.

How Rood.

Hyde and Sikh.

Plus, for no reason that I understood then, nor do I understand why now:

Are You My Mummy?

and

The Dart of Harkness.

AB-

The Lost Boys

The Lost Boys

That which I crave I may not take,

this mortal thirst I cannot slake.

That which I love must sicken me

whose soul is bled because of thee.

The folly and the fear is mine,

for love is death if I am thine,

so murder hope and set me free,

else I am damned because of thee.

My name is Gwendolen Barrie, although for many years I have been addressed solely as Sister Marie Theresa. I was almost seventeen years of age when the boy rapped on my chamber window. Being of a practical nature unlike my brothers I presumed some bird had lighted on my window in search of sustenance or rest.

Fearlessly I threw back the velvet drapes and was startled to discover myself face to face with an exquisite youth, hair combed stylishly off his forehead, wearing a tailcoat which fitted his narrow shoulders to perfection. His eyes were of a blue so vivid I could find no comparison save with that shade which illuminates the peacock’s wing. His bearing denied his apparent age which seemed my own. His countenance was one which spoke simply of authority, but his smile is my most precious memory.

“Let me in Gwen”, he teased. “My hands are frozen fast to my gloves.”

It was after midnight, and I will tell you I was not in the habit of allowing foolish boys to trifle with my reputation, even if they had risked death climbing three solid floors of ivy clad stonework. But Peter was unlike anyone I had ever met. He beguiled my heart, and whilst knowing for the sake of my family I should curse him utterly, I cannot; I love him still.

I believed him then to be one of Jamie’s friends, for how else should he have come to know my name. Undoubtedly he had been attempting to reach his school friend’s room on some childish dare, and in error had arrived at my own. His rueful smile concorded with my theory and I had to force myself to suppress the beginnings of girlish laughter. Assuming my most stern expression I commanded, “Behave like a gentleman and I will open the casement for you.”

His returned bow I took for agreement and a moment later I was standing most shockingly alone with a young man, whilst dressed only in my night apparel. As I have stated, I was not possessed of a fanciful disposition. Thus wearing half a bolt of stout white Indian cotton in male company did not inspire the vapours in me as perhaps it ought.

I used to torment myself with thoughts of how different everything might have been, were I only more open to the worlds of imagination, had I then the courage to believe in dreams or nightmares. I am finished with such reproaches. If there are devils, and I know there are, then perhaps there are truly creatures of light too. If so then I pray they watch over and comfort my brothers, both the living and the dead.

It will seem strange when I tell you that in those first few hours with Peter, those social niceties so essential to polite intercourse, the exchange of family names, friends and such, simply never took place. Perhaps his unorthodox method of introduction rendered these matters both unnecessary and irrelevant. And his keen wit and passion for life were so delightful to behold. He flattered me by treating me as an equal, listening to my opinions as they were as worthy of consideration as his own. I had never been so happy.

The reason for my late wakefulness was the opportunity to peruse contraband literature. I had been indulging in a fest of forbidden delights, Baudelaire, Wilde and for good measure some pamphlets upon rational dress and the franchise for the fairer sex. His gaze had fallen upon these open volumes as he entered the room and we had engaged immediately in a kaleidoscopic discussion which lasted till the first glimmer of dawn was promised through cloud. He started up then as if there were some matter that had come urgently to his attention. Speaking swiftly in that perfectly modulated voice he exclaimed, “Gwen I must leave. Tell me I may come again, I may surely.”

I affirmed his request, and before I could object he had flung open the casement windows, clearly intending to depart in the same fashion he had arrived. He glanced back towards me with that same puckish grin, and that was the last thing I recalled prior to waking in the bright sunlight. The maid was knocking on the door to call me to breakfast. Sluggishly I roused myself from my chair, to dress and the sensibilities of the day.

Father was absent due to some business he must attend to. The only company I found at table were mother and Jamie, of David there was no sign. Upon enquiry I discovered he was unwell and resolved to stay within his chambers. This did not concern me greatly as it was no uncommon thing. His was a melancholy and delicate nature, and he was subject often to chills and slight ailments which the stout of health like myself did not find themselves afflicted by. Jamie was his usual self, steadfastly attempting to please mother and comfort her concerns for our brother. She fretted so over him, and Jamie worried so over her.

As you can see everything appeared to be if not as it should be, but as it was ordinarily. In the midst of all this domestic tedium, I ask you is it at all strange that I should long for one who would hold my company especially dear. How could it be other than I should crave Peter’s company, yearn for his return. I was not to be disappointed. That very evening I received my second visitation. I had even flung open my windows in hopeful anticipation. I must have fallen asleep I thought, in my wicker chair, because I steadfast practical soul that I was, ever ready to calculate the household accounts, soothe cooks sensitive nerves, and coax ever fractious Jamie into eating, was possessed by the most fabulous dream.

I could hear Peter’s voice whispering in my ear, and more disturbingly his arms around me as I awoke, the night sky ablaze with stars all about us as I opened my eyes. There was a bizarre stillness in the world I had never felt before, nectar to I who was so rarely granted the freedom to walkout into the streets in solitude, without mother to chaperone my conduct and my thoughts.

But we were not in the street, nor in the park amongst the great trees I loved so well. We were not even walking but rather suspended in the air with no rational explanation other than sleep to sustain my character. And the beauty of it all, the clouds brushed by us like amorphorous angels. Dear God, I could weep now just to think on it. The streets below, glowing with gaslight appeared like some magical fairyland.

Peter laughed to see my bedazzled and astonished expression. “How do you like my realm Gwen. Is it not the greatest adventure ever, the most fabulous spectacle one might imagine.”

And I so rarely lost for words could only nod my reply, and tighten my hold upon his waist- a shameless but natural response to my predicament. A thunderbolt of sheer mischief shot across his eyes and I was suddenly sped through the skies at a pace I dared not even contemplate. I screamed, not in fear but delight as he wheeled and dived like a swallow across the ether.

I think that was the moment I realised I loved him, for his recklessness, his vivaciousness, his adamant refusal to be crippled by the curses which chain common humanity. He would never grow old or grey or tedious. No frost could wither that brilliant intellect. Had I only known the devil’s bargain he had struck to sustain those treasures, could I have changed what was to come. I do not know, and as I have stated I am done with such reproaches.

Finally he returned me back to my tiny balcony. Holding hands we whispered our farewells for the morning was drawing nigh and people would soon be bustling about the city. I did not want to risk discovery for even in dreams my mother’s reproaches would be too awful to think on. I had half turned to pass through the casement windows when with boyish grace he spun me around to place a delicate kiss upon my lips.

“Are we friends forever” he questioned.

“Ever and always” I swore to him. Ever and always.

And so it is, even as the years fly by and the past is all I have of pleasure, the future a grey stretched road of nothingness that I do his bidding still.

How awful that following morning, descending the stairs sleepy headed and chiding myself for the absurd follies which had filled my sleep the night before, to discover the news of David’s worsened condition. Mother sat white faced, silently staunching her tears with a handkerchief, Jamie resolutely clasping her other hand in his. Father had still not come home but was sent for urgently. The doctor was in attendance but could find no immediate cause for David’s distress. What a dreadful day. Eventually at Jamie’s insistence Mother took comfort in her bible. It was clever of him to know how this would solace her in her hour of need. I had no such consolation in the good book, despite Peter discovering me later, dutifully mulling over the gospels as if I might find some magic to cure David within its pages.

His reaction was very strange. I had jumped up to greet him when he discerned my reading material. His countenance became bathed in white; his beautiful eyes glowed in fury. ‘Put aside that terrible book Gwen’, he cried out. ‘Cast it upon the fire. You will find no beauty in it, only cold laws and cruelty. Put it aside I beg of you.’

Shocked as I was, the tears which adorned his ivory pale cheekbones were of more import to me than any false piety. I flung the bible into my bedside drawer and hastened towards him, to ease down the arm he had flung across his face. I coaxed him like a child and soothed him with old lullabies – the way I had sung to Jamie on occasion, when his fragile nerves would not let him rest. Peter’s anger evaporated so suddenly I wondered if it had merely been one more prank. One that I had failed to understand. For he threw back his head and laughed, so loud that I feared for our discovery. Then snatching me up in his arms, he led me into a ridiculous waltz, which near resulted in our bumping into or knocking over the majority of my bedroom furniture. Despite the sadness which oppressed my soul I could not fail to be cheered by his gleeful absurdities. My grief could not withstand his gaiety.

When finally I could dance no more, I pleaded for a moment to catch my breath and he set me down upon my wicker chair. Still, yet still he paced the room, gay hearted as ever. At last he raced up to the open window and performing a perfect circus cartwheel finished, alarmingly perched upon the veranda railing. ‘Peter’ I gasped, ‘Come down from there this instance.’

He gave no answer save to hold out his hand to me in a half mocking princely gesture. Like a moth to the flame I drew closer, ever closer till our fingers touched. I cannot excuse myself the moment of madness in which I too found myself poised upon the rail. My heart was in my mouth, I feared to look down for I had heard that vertigo could unbalance a soul with one unwary glance. Instead I gazed into Peter’s eyes as though my very life depended on it, which in truth it did.

And I cannot pretend to have been the least part horrified when he kissed me. And such a kiss it was, my head reeled, the stars danced before me, and had he not caught me firmly in his strong arms it would surely have been my death. ‘Do you trust me,’ he asked, half in earnest, half teasingly and I nodded my reply as he stepped clear off the railing taking me with him. I almost screamed, but it was all so much like the previous nights dream that I did not. Instead time stood still for a moment.

And we did not fall. It was as though we were standing upon a pane of glass. I suppose I must have been in shock then. I can find no other way to explain my calmness. ‘Last night,’ I questioned him. ‘As real as I Gwen’, he smiled. ‘As real as dreams.’ I did not understand then the later remark. I wondered if a lifetime of practical reasoning had resulted in a fit of insanity. I felt quite myself but not having been mad before, I was not sure how I ought to feel or think.

Peter laughed at my confusion and spun me around to make me squeal. It was impossible to remain serious when he was in such a mood, so recklessly I gave myself up to the lunacy of it all. And so we played. We peered through the candlelit windows to watch the children sleeping, and flew over the heads of solitary policemen who never once thought to gaze up at the skies to see the strange pair hovering above them. We even peered through the windows of a house of ill repute, and saw a young lady wearing rouge enough to have made mother slap me, with precious little undergarments on, beating a be whiskered gentleman old enough to have been her father.

My blush made it plain to Peter that I had seen quite enough for one evening. He took me home- my flushed cheeks had almost faded when we arrived. We both fell oddly silent at our farewell. Minutes passed wordlessly, then he planted one kiss beneath the hair at the side of my neck, and then looking into my eyes he said as statement not question.

‘Tomorrow.’ There was no need of an answer.

Barely ten minutes after his departure I heard his voice again, crying my name at the counterpane. He was half sobbing in pain or anguish. Throwing myself hastily out of bed I flung open the casement. Peter stood there ashen faced, tears coursing across his countenance. There was a terrible burn upon his forehead which had almost caught his left eye, as though he had spun away to deflect some awful blow. I led him by the hand like a child and sat him down upon my chair. ‘Peter, I must summon a doctor. I cannot help you alone.’ But he merely clung to my hand and shook his head. Finally he collected himself and so calmly he explained. God help my soul, if there is a god.

‘A doctor would be no use here Gwen. You have what I need. Dreams are sustained by blood, not pills and potions.’

He did not even ask. He knew I would give him whatever he required. My eyes told all. It was such a simple matter really. He still had hold of my hand and merely inclined his head to my wrist. I did not look away and thus saw him gently sink those delicate teeth into my flesh. I gasped with the pain then and sank onto my knees on the bare wooden floor. Soon the pain ceased. There was no pleasure in this matter for me, as for him I cannot comment save only this. As five brief minutes passed, counted by the pounding of my heart I saw the wound upon his visage fading impossibly, miraculously away. The blood loss began to overwhelm me; my breathing grew ever harsher as I stroked his silken hair, something I had previously so longed to do.

‘Peter, you must stop dearest, you must.’ I finally gasped.

He shuddered, his dreamy eyes focused again and with the one ungainly movement I ever witnessed from him, he pushed me clumsily away. As though it cost him something terrible to do so. A price I would never understand and never pay. I sat crumpled where he had flung me. But Pandora-like I had to know, had to learn the truth of what had occurred. ‘What has been happening Peter. What is going on in this house.’

He smiled the bittersweet smile then, the smile of a fallen angel.

‘David wished to be as I am. I came to fetch him away tonight but your Jamie harmed me. He threw sanctified water in my face, then waved the black book at me like the envious hypocrite he is.’

I would have started up then, but I felt close to fainting and could only beg of him.

‘Jamie, what have you done to him?’ He looked at me then in puzzlement, as though I had asked the most irrelevant question in the world. ‘What have I done? I have merely defended myself. Your little brother will wake tomorrow with a headache that is all. I would not sully myself with his feeble blood. The pity is for David. I cannot save him now from the grey consolations of the grave. His soul has fled.’

And there it was David’s mysterious sickness which had so perplexed the doctor, explained quite succinctly. Peter’s tender ministrations had taken him to the brink of death; Jamie’s actions had saved him from becoming a parasite upon the living. Peter could sense my anguish and horror, vehemently he argued, ‘Gwennie don’t take on so. It was what David wanted, what he longed for. Wouldn’t you wish to be ever young, always free from the mediocre cares of humanity?’

Stubbornly I shook my head. ‘Not at such a price. The cure is worse than the sickness.’

He did not shout at me for this but his angry distress was plain, in his countenance and his tone. ‘If you are so certain of your choice Gwen, then for the sake of our shared affection I must warn you. I have tasted your blood; it has become a sacred thing to my flesh. Else you flee to holy ground where I cannot sense you by tomorrow’s eve I must hunt you and claim you as kin. Do you understand?’

He stood up then and seemed to tower over me as I sat upon the floor, contemplating my hands, my wound, the blood upon my nightgown, anything at all to stop my thinking on the truth. Peter was a murderer. I loved the killer who had destroyed my brother and now offered me the same fate. I forced myself to reply, with what dignity I could muster.

‘I understand Peter. I think it would be best if you should leave now.’

He walked gracefully to the open casement. I thought then he would leave without another word. But he turned his head back to mine, and with that familiar half teasing smile quizzed me.

‘Friends forever, Gwen.’

I could barely see him through the haze of my tears as I uttered the treacherous thoughts of my heart for him.

‘Ever and always.’

My story thereafter is simple to relate. There was no time to explain ought to my family. And how on earth might I tell all to my parents, even with Jamie’s account to support mine. Could I have told them that I dallied with the fallen angel who stole David’s life and attempted to steal his soul. Could I tell them that I loved him still?

No, I could not. And so it was that casting aside my sullied nightgown, I like a later day Ophelia got me to a convent and the sheltering arms of the Catholic heresy. The sisters have been kind, too kind I believed for the first few mournful years, when the guilt fair threatened to overwhelm my senses. But the news of my family they obtained in a circumspect way cheered my lonely heart. Jamie was become a successful novelist, and by a weird twist of fate had made the unhappy past events of our lives into a sweet fable, to entertain children’s bedtimes. I was so proud of him.

Alas my family were not so of me. I had left my father a hastily scribbled note, saying only that I must go away but there was no need to worry. This was taken as evidence that I had gone off with some unsuitable young fellow. My name was never spoken of in his house again. It was no more than I deserved. And what of Peter?

For him I indulged in the one romantic gesture of my life. Before quitting my family home I left the poem which begins this narrative, wrapped in green ribbon amongst the ivy which crept about my balcony. I knew only he might find it. But he cannot, will not, find me. Consecrated earth is a bind to his exquisite perceptions. He did not deceive me on that point. But he did not warn me of the temptations I would suffer either.

Each eventide when the sun fades from the sky I am possessed by the fiercest of longings; a need, a passion to fling off these heavy black robes and seek my wild freedom far away from imprisoning convent walls. I crave his company. I thirst for it. I fight my demons through the long dark nights and when the dawn greets me at last, with its sweet promise of temporary surcease from my torments, I weep for all the lost boys, David, Peter and Jamie and hope that at the last we may all find peace.

Virgin Vampire.

They made me a vampire.

I know what you're thinking. Where is the Byronic sneer? The crushed velvet? The frills? And why am I not humming The Sisters of Mercy? I did all these once you know...
(Maudlin)
so long ago...well, not really so long ago, hardly long ago at all in fact - I'm still quite green. No, as undead as I may be, I am not putrefying. I'm just a mere baby in the undead scale of things, being a vampire only for the last fifteen years or so. Which is very embarrassing in bloodsucking circles, I can tell you. Whereas youth is the currency of the living today, old age is worth its weight in blood to the undead. There is nothing a vampire likes better to do than go on about their age. And you should hear some of them: "I remember meeting Mary Shelley"; or "I'm the woman who killed Jack the Ripper"; "I was at the Crucifixion"; "I sucked the blood at Paschendale"...and all I can manage is "Millennium Dome?"
Slight pause.
I know what else you're thinking. What's it like? Did it hurt? How do you become a vampire? You don't become a vampire overnight, it all takes time. And no one really does it through choice. Who would choose being alone? Being an outcast? Being cold and having no heart. Having all your previous life, loves and friendships suddenly barred to you. Not being welcome any more. Ignored and forgotten. Would anyone really want to choose all this? Because that is what being a vampire is really all about, fuck all your metaphors about sex, this is what it means: forced to go out only at night, forced to live off the suffering you inflict on others, forced to be hated and despised by the rest of society...of course, they never mentioned any of this in the ad, when I applied for that DSS job.

Pause.

Well, even a vampire has to work. Even the undead have utility bills to pay. And jumpers to take to Sketchleys. And smalls to the launderette. I can live...die with that. And the Department of Social Security have a very good pension scheme. Though I don't think they realise how long they'll have to pay me out for. That's the trouble with pensions, sensible as they may be, they don't really cater for the immortal.
Pause.
D'you know what the worst aspect of vampirism is? It's not the blood, the garlic, or the stakes. Why does that always sound like something a chef would say? It's not even that bloody embarrassing image. Lord Byron and his doctor have a lot to answer for. The trouble with that image is that it's now got nothing to do with what it originally meant. There was a time, I've been told, when the sneer and the dark velvet and cloak actually meant something. Believe it or not, there was a time when a front-frilled shirt actually struck fear into mortal man.
Slight pause.
Actually, now that I come to think about it, maybe it still does. Well, would you wear one? Look at Jon Pertwee. I rest my case. Anyway, where was I? Yes, the image. You dress up like that now and all you get is "are you a Goth?" But that's a small irritation. No, the worst thing about vampirism is that it really is nothing more than the biggest and scariest extended family in the whole bloody history of everything. All inbred.
When you become a vampire, the only other bloodsucker you know is the one who made you. Your “sire" I think is the popular term now. They are meant to show you the ropes and the do's and don'ts. Like, never suck on an alcoholic. And never suck a flower child, hippy or general pot-head. You end up spending hours just looking at your hands. And never, ever, ever try to suck the blood of a Tony Hancock - he just keeps going on about it being "very nearly an armful!"
At that time, the time when you've just become a vampire, it's all still quite fun. You have this wonderful sense of freedom, and you and your maker have a whale of a time. But then you have to go and meet "the family". You have to go and "meet their mother" as it were. Which can be quite daunting. You know what they say "All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does, that's his." Okay, it's someone else's quote, but I'm a vampire for Christ's sake, I feed off others - if I can't plagiarise...Anyway, my "sire" was a gorgeous strawberry blonde called Joanne.

(sighs)

She used to have the smell of freshly baked bread about her hair. Never could work that one out...and d'you know what her chat-up line was? "You'll have to meet my mum, she's in the cemetery". I thought she meant she was an orphan. Or, "mum in cemetery" was a metaphor for "don't speak to parents any more". Then I realised she was being literal. Anyway, before any of all that happened - she was the one who sucked me...and very nice it was as well.
So, I had to meet the mother, I don't know if she was some kind of Queen Vampire of the Damned, the first of the undead...! hope not, because that'd've been such a grotesque perversion of the earth mother even for vampirism. And thank goodness vampires don't age, because the thought of vamps all becoming like their mother...I had to go and meet mother, and mother was huge. I had to meet mother, and mother was grotesque. I had to meet mother, and mother was called Matrimonia Shamley.

If you can imagine the Jabba the Hut of vampires. She had a lot of red hair and foundation, dressed permanently in a regency ball gown. D'you remember, when very young, having to visit granny, and granny insisting on a kiss? D'you remember rubbing your face afterwards, reaching for the Dettol? And God, did Matrimonia love to slobber. She actually thought she was some kind of sex bomb! Imagine that, a Barbara Cartland look alike vampire thinking she was sexy. (Looking around, sheepish) She even tried to bed me.

Slight pause.

I know what you're thinking: thank you. That's an image that'll stay with us for a very long time - Barbara Cartland and sexual intercourse. Telling people what they should do, that was another of her vices. Giving a little parental "advice" is how she termed it. She had erroneously assumed that because she had lived so long, hundreds of years, she knew all there was to know about death, sex and vampires. She thought she was the fountain of all knowledge: "I have been through it all" she used to screech. And I believed her. Told her everything, placed myself entirely in her trust, even Joanne warned me not to be so open. Then I realised that Matrimonia knew absolutely nothing at all.

We actually got on very well to begin with, me and the walking mother-in-law joke. Even the family seemed okay. You should have seen them: a pick'n'mix assortment of the most bizarre characters possible. And oh so original: an Uncle Fester, a Grimly Fiendish, a Kenneth Williams....God knows where that one came from...and then I met and made my first vampire. That's where it all started going wrong.
Apparently, you're meant to be very careful about who you "sire". God, I hate that term, makes it sound like you've fathered babies: "I sired x-amount of vamps". Apparently, you have to consider carefully what sort of person they are. How mature, could they cope with the kill, that sort of thing. But when you're in love, you know what it's like, your brain is the last thing you rely on. Second favourite organ sort of thing. It's all instinctual. And I went and made undead and fell in love with a divorcee called Eve.
There was a time she thought the world of me. And I went and turned her into a vampire. She was a free spirit and individual, and I made her a part of the most restrictive family. She was original and creative, and I turned her into plagiarism.
Nothing seemed at all wrong to begin with. We laughed so much and had great fun. We made a point of sucking the blood of celebrities, and you wouldn't believe how different their blood tasted. You eventually develop quite a palate, as far as blood goes. Unless, of course, you're an alcoholic bloodsucker, Rats’ blood probably tastes just as good to you then. (It's the undead equivalent of Windolene). Anyway, it is all a little like wine. I know, I know, I'm not meant to "drink... vine". (Slight pause) ; Bram Stoker is another with a lot to answer for. I've been a part of the biggest vampire family and I have never, ever actually met someone who goes around saying “The children of the night, what beautiful music they mike." Vampires actually do that as a drunken party piece because it's so damned embarrassing. Ah, stereotypes, what a wonderful thing. Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, the blood of the stars. (stops) "The Blood of the Stars". God, that sounds like a nice title for a poem. Blimey, don't tell me I've actually thought of something original. The blood of the stars…Anyway, the best blood I've ever actually had was that of Eddie Izzard. It was so sweet. Bit of an unusual after-taste though. However, the trouble with bloodsucking is, it all has an effect... and you go around mimicking your victim’s behaviour for a few days. Yes, I did the make-up, and the mime, and "I left my aura there". You actually do that as a vampire, leave your aura around the place. I used to leave mine everywhere - best way to hog the best coffins: "Sorry, but that's my aura". Never mind. It was really just a phase. You should have seen who Eve sucked though: only Diana Rigg. Her blood apparently had quite a kick to it. And the effect on Eve just had to be seen: it was kinky boots and leather for days on end. That's the secret of good impressionist - they're really only vampires.
And then it all went wrong. Spectacularly. Remember the do's and don'ts I told you about? The biggest don't in vampirism is two vampires sucking off each other. No, no, sorry, I'll rephrase that. Two vampires drinking each other's blood. It's the undead equivalent of marrying your under-age cousin I imagine. Me and Eve did it. God, that must've made us the undead version of Jerry Lee Lewis, (slight pause) It was odd. We didn't plan it, it just happened. There was no guilt, nothing like that. Eve's blood tasted like cider. And it made me sick. Violently. I sucked the blood of a vampire, and the toilet bowl became my friend. Now, that sounds good. Maybe I should sing the Blues. And then...nothing. I don't know if we were expecting some terrible retribution, but no thunderbolt came, (slight pause) Slowly though, I began to notice. Eve was changing. Which was scary, because vampires never change. They never evolve. But something was changing her. God, it was horrible, like an infection. When I realised what was going on, it was frightening. Poor Eve...she started changing... into me. She started dressing like me. Talking like me, being me. After the blessing of being non-reflective, the wonderful personality , that I’d met was swapped for a mirror with all my sickening faults emblazoned across it.

Slight pause.

I detested what I'd done. God, I wanted to stake her. I wanted to just grab the first sharp object I could find and ram it into her chest. Maybe I should have done. I lost my temper once and threw some holy water over her. It burnt. The smell of holy water in the morning. I should've done worse. Killed her. Would've made it easier. Maybe I should've done that to myself, vampire suicide. The other big no-no. My final choice of action was far worse. I told Matrimonia. Everything. You've all seen Interview with a Vampire. I thought they'd bury me alive, deprive me of blood or cut my head off. You know what families are like. To my surprise, she seemed very supportive. She took Eve under her wing. Hell, it seemed, had lots more furies than a vampire scorned.

Slight pause.

Little did I know that Matrimonia and her brood were preparing a little surprise for me. Eve, by now, had become very close to Matrimonia. And changed again. Yes, I have wondered about that. She became one of the most vicious and powerful vampires I have ever known. The sort the films are made about. The family were glad to have a bloodsucker with what they saw as "panache". The flaccid little anaemics that they were. What I failed to realise, when I confided in Matrimonia, was that she had centuries of confusion, regret, anger and loneliness raging within her head. Telling her was the worse thing I could've done, for she took charge. And that's when they made me a vampire. Again.
The stories came first. I'd become a selfish, evil being, who threw Eve into the sunlight to watch her bum. I was also meant to have tortured her with crucifixes and garlic sausages?! And then they punished me, in that wonderfully subtle, civilised manner, by exclusion. The one thing worse than being talked about..." An outcast among the outcasts. But everyone still smiled. And no doubt had a song in their heart. A few took pity, but I felt like the sheriff in Blazing Saddles, given apple pies by dear sweet old ladies, with the qualification 'You'll have the decency not to tell anyone". God, it screwed me up. The amount of rat's blood I went through. So, I threw myself into work, taking it out on all the claimants, calling them parasites. Funny that. Got the sack as well. As for the Family, I wished I could put the whole stinking lot of them into a school gymnasium and torch the place. That'd be nice, becoming a vampire vampire slayer. And you wouldn't believe the amount of anger, rage and general petty jealousy coming from Matrimonia. For someone who was nearly 200 years old, she behaved like an adolescent. She loved sending poison pen letters written in holy water. And garlic breads. Became an open season then - the emotional states of all involved must've resembled a Great War battlefield.

That was all some time ago now. It's funny the way things worked out. Matrimonia changed her name and became a best-selling writer of self-help books. They go down very well in America. Eve became a politician, with strong right-wing opinions on sex. I think her nickname is Doris Karloff. The Family went into advertising. And me? Nothing like that. I just suck the blood of virgins.

Hendryk Korzeniowski

Life begins…

I decided to celebrate my fortieth birthday (and long years of marriage) with a quickie divorce and a barbecue. The sauce was rather sour and the meat was bitter and unpleasant and the Inspector says that without DNA fingerprinting I’d be a free man today.

AB

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Anita Blake

Anita Blake,
you’re such a flake.
You used to be such fun
when you were fighting vampires.
Now you can’t keep your clothes on.

LB

Black Roses

Here is where the hunters hunt,

Here the weak are prey.

Here is where the hunters are kings,

Here the weak are slaves.

Here is where the hunters "live",

Here the weak are allowed to stay.

Here is where the weak are prey,

Here the Humans are weak and prey.

Here is where the hunters reign supreme,

Here the hunters are everything,

Here the Vampires are everything.

Here is where the Vampires hunt,

Here the humans are prey,

And this my friend, is how things are,

Here in this place,

Hidden from view,

The path subtly marked,

By Black Roses in bloom...

...See You In New Mayhem...

)*(

(inspired by the books by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes)

Zerah Star

zerah_561@hotmail.com

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I greet the light

I greet the light

I greet the everlasting day and night

because I must, because it will.

When silence falls as fall it must,

my memories shall fade to dust

but still a resonance will sound,

a shadow where no life is found.

that’s all that will be left of me

but all there was there still shall be.

I greet the light,

I greet the everlasting day and night.

LB

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