Nocturnal

by David Paul

  His half-ass attempt to break up the drama was successful, but only temporarily. The jovial attitude ends quickly. With each step closer towards her destination, her heart rate escalates. Fiona can almost feel the energy pulsing in the air like static electricity. It feels both good, yet frightening at the same time. The rush was similar to the first time firing a large handgun or doing a first line of cocaine. The danger excites her senses, but grips her with underlying fear at the same time. She’s been waiting for this night, and now it is upon her. David leads her through the dark house. She eagerly follows him.

  “I cannot wait for you to give me your gift,” Fiona said. Her voice is filled with excitement. Fiona is at the top of a staircase heading downward. “It’ll be you and I…”

  David cuts off Fiona abruptly.

  “Enough with that—I need to tell you so much before I bestow this upon you,” he said. David is warning her. “I need you to listen to everything that I tell you and trust me. I am telling you the truth and nothing else.” Fiona senses the conflict inside of the vampire. “You’ve shown this black heart love once again, and I fear that our love will grow twisted after tonight.”

  He has a browbeat look upon his face. His sullen puss reflects his dark mood, and this discourages Fiona from responding to what he said.

  He leads her through the unlit basement by her hand. Darkness cloaks her every step. David approaches a wooden door that bears the marks of unrelenting time. Brass trim framing the door is beaten and worn. The vampire slides aside the heavy brass bolt. It makes an uncomfortable metallic squeal that induces Fiona to shiver. Another set of stairs leads down to the sub-basement and into the bowels of the old house. The wall surrounding the staircase is solid mossy granite with a characteristic musty odor.

  “Follow me,” he said.

  Fiona follows him silently down a dark staircase into a pitch-black room. David lights black candles all throughout the room. The illumination allows Fiona to see how the room is arranged. An altar adorned in red silk is now visible. A golden chalice sits upon the altar. Jet-black silken tapestries cover all of the walls. Items of mysterious origin are everywhere. Fiona takes in everything. She has never been in the basement of the old house. Fiona did not even know that there was a sub-basement to the house.

  There is a small table with two plush velvet armchairs set up on the side of the altar. Another lit black candle, a bottle of ancient red wine, and two priceless goblets sit atop the table. The jeweled goblets glisten from the lit candle. The red rubies are so big that they almost appear to be fakes.

  The vampire prepared an over-the-top decor for this evening’s events. David wanted to create a serious atmosphere to stress the importance of her decision. The intoxicating smells of wolfsbane, sage, and patchouli oil are thick and heavy in the air. Scented candles and potent incense easily drown out the olden damp smell of the basement. The thick smoke and flickering candlelight add an eerie demonic haze throughout the room.

  Shadows from the burning candles dance throughout the chamber as if a faint draft in the sub-basement is the choreographer. The timeworn granite walls are stained with precipitation that glistens in the soft light. The odd shimmer radiates its own freakish glare. The heavy silence helps create a dramatic setting for the upcoming ritual. An unspoken tension exists between the two. Fiona’s heart beats loudly for what seems like hours.

  “It looks like I’m about to have dinner with the Devil,” Fiona said.

  She broke the silence.

  “Be silent, woman,” he said. His deep tone and pitch black eyes warn her of his disposition. “The time for jest is over. Your soul is hanging in the balance on this very night.” He is not receptive to her humor, and a small bit of anger is brewing inside of him.

  “Lighten up,” she said sarcastically.

  Within a split second, he flies across the room silently, but swiftly, and now his hand is wrapped around her throat. Fiona stares into his lifeless eyes, and her heart drops into her belly. She remains silent and frozen. Fiona is completely frightened of her lover for the first time in their relationship. David has never behaved like this before with her. They are both a tad bit out of character tonight. She does not understand the gravity of her situation. He releases his soft, but assertive grip on Fiona’s neck.

  “Be seated.” Fiona takes a seat at the table quickly. David carefully pours some of the wine into each of the goblets.

  “Drink, my Fiona,” he said. “This wine is from Pope Benedict the Fourth. It is far older than I. I’d let it breath, but it has been dead for centuries. Savor this very moment, and listen to me carefully.” Fiona listens with her utmost attention. “This night is finally upon us. I cannot go back on my word that I have sworn to you. Before I drink of your blood, you will listen to what I have to say. I need you to know exactly what you are getting involved with.”

  “I know what I am doing,” she interrupted. The vampire knows that she is wrong. She has no idea of what she is doing. He forgives her ignorance.

  “This isn’t the Twilight movie or some other, terrible foolish mockery of my kind,” the vampire said. Fiona watches too much TV, and the vampire is jabbing at that. “There are no happy endings to be had, just an eternity of pain and misery. You’ll know no joy, and our love will become a twisted vile union filled with jealousy and deceit.”

  It can be seen on her face that she does not agree with what he is saying already. Fiona is very opinionated. If she has already committed herself to a decision, then it takes a great deal of persuasion to change her mind.

  “Everything will be fine between us,” she said.

  “Our love has already started to become twisted,” David said. The vampire has noticed Fiona being out of sorts lately. He knows that the curse is even prodding her. The tiny tilt toward evil in her indelicately balanced soul is bringing out her worst. “I can feel it in my dead and weary bones. I dreamed of you while you were pleasuring yourself earlier, and I could feel the seeds of evil growing deep down in the pit of your soul.” Fiona shows a look of disinterest in David’s reasoning. She has only seen David’s good side. Until tonight, she had only caught a glimpse of the beast.

  “I am a monster, a beast if you will, and I am incapable of true love as is. The evil in my black heart will not allow for true love, just a wicked parody of it. Once your heart no longer beats and becomes a black lifeless void like mine, then our love will be even more tainted, if not destroyed altogether.”

  “But I’ll love you forever, David.” Fiona is caught up in the tension of the situation. The vampire knows what will really happen if she’s turned. “You are not a monster!” A look of anger comes over him as she interrupted. David’s eyes glow red like that of a demon from the depths. Fiona is silently terrified. Their eyes lock intently. She is immediately under his spell.

  “You will listen to me,” he said, “and after I’ve spoken, you will make your choice of life or eternal death.”

  His eyes revert back to their normal piercing darkness.

  “But,” she said.

  Fiona is stubborn, and she doesn’t fall completely into his trance at first. Most humans completely fold when a vampire takes control of their mind. It’s uncanny that it is like this with her. Fiona isn’t as easily charmed like the others. David is a master vampire. He can’t help but charm people almost all of the time. That’s why they are meant to be. They wouldn’t work if she robotic-ally answered to his every command.

  Others have easily bended to his will. A beautiful face loses its luster with a lack of a mind. She may be frightened, but Fiona is a fighter that’s doesn’t like to back down from anyone. Her pretty appearance would not lead someone to believing that.

  The crimson eyes of the beast show a deeper glow than before. David has never fully penetrated her mind in the past. Maybe it just came so easily with everyone else, and he took that for granted. No human has ever fully resisted him. If given direct eye contact, the vampire cannot lose. No human will ever resist h
im. Fiona finds herself lost in his gaze. She is lost in a world of time, space, and weightless void. This time, there is no escaping his forced entry into her thoughts. She never finishes her sentence. Fiona listens to him from a dream-like state.

  “This curse cannot be undone,” the vampire said. Fiona is captivated. “The hunger will consume most of your free will as we must feed. Only fresh blood will satisfy this never-ending thirst.” David sips more wine with Fiona who’s in a charmed state of awareness. “Feelings of pain and emptiness consume your lost soul until you feast on the warm blood of your victims.”

  David has had his share of unfortunate victims over the years. She has no idea of what transpires during the vampire’s bloody nights. She knows that he has to feed, but that is the extent of her knowledge. Fiona cannot even imagine just how many bloody nights that he has had in his lifetime.

  “Sexual encounters and bodily pleasures are only brief distractions of this hunger,” David said. He can attest to that. As strikingly beautiful as Fiona is, his lust for her cannot overcome the depraved lust for blood. “Drugs, alcohol, and all other vices may serve as temporary relief. A maddening obsession to kill and consume blood grips your mind and holds you hostage.”

  The vampire can hear the blood flowing through Fiona’s veins as if listening to water rushing downstream. This excites him and stirs up the monster hiding behind his delicate facade of being a charming handsome man.

  “Only the blood can begin to fill in the large void that you feel inside when you lack a beating heart,” he revealed. The void in the center of his chest seemed bottomless. The only time that the vampire has felt fulfilled is when someone was dead in his arms. “Time wears on endlessly with each day blurring into the next. You’ll wish that time could erase the memories of the horrors that you have seen and all of the pain that you feel. Yet your memory will be crystal clear. Your mind will be haunted like a nightmare that cannot be woken up from,” David said.

  After all this time, he is still waiting to awaken from the endless nightmare.

  David feels the resurgence of the painful thirst that has haunted him for centuries. It is the sound of her moving blood that makes him feel this way. This cannot be helped. It cannot be cured. The blood flows like a red tranquil stream that he wants to play in. David has felt this way about humans since he had tasted his first drop. His looks and charm can only hide what he is, but they can never change what he is. This is only the mask he wears to assimilate into normal society. Behind the mask lurks the true monster.

  “I was pure of heart when I was turned,” the vampire said. David was a good man prior to becoming an undead creature. He didn’t deserve this, but that is life. Life is rarely fair. “My essence was that of piety, understanding, and kindness,” David said. “I am now a tortured soul. If my true essence were that of evil, then I’d be reveling in this curse with no remorse or conscience.” He has had many chances to embrace the darkness throughout his tenure. “If my soul was filled with hatred, I would have embraced the curse and gotten drunk on its power. In some ways, I wish that I had followed the darker path because it would have eased my suffering a great deal.”

  The chosen path has been much more torturous for him.

  “I walk the night aimlessly praying for an end to my unholy existence, but it never comes,” he said. David has been waiting for the end, since the beginning of the nightmare. “The evil inside me will not allow me to pierce my own heart to end the curse. There is no salvation. The curse drives me to continue upon my wicked path of insanity… a journey into Hell …as if Hell with wide open gates is not my morbid reality already…”

  Fiona is still entranced, and David snaps her out of it. The vampire had force-fed her mind with his words. “Are you starting to understand what I have been trying to tell you all along?” The vampire asked.

  He questioned her comprehension.

  “I understand you, but I just don’t think that would happen to me…or even us for that matter,” she said. Fiona is a tough nut to crack. “We have a special bond that cannot be broken by this. I believe the bond will be strengthened. I truly believe this, and I do not think that you will change my mind, David.”

  “Woman,” David said, “you are being so foolish and shortsighted.” Her response angered him. “You must see far beyond the obvious, but meaningless advantages of the curse. You will not want to live forever when your heart is dead.”

  The vampire cannot stress this enough.

  “I see so much more than you think,” she said. “My life was absolutely meaningless before we met. I’ve finally found where I belong, and I found peace of mind with you.”

  “My love,” the vampire said, “the precious peace of mind that you speak of will turn into chaos if you partake in this.”

  Fiona rolls her eyes. “I wish that I could agree with you.” David doesn’t retort to her statement or the gesture right away.

  “I never really opened up to you about most of my past,” he said. “It was not my intention to be so secretive. I was worried that you would be horrified by what I have to tell you.”

  “I already know that you are a vampire, so what are you so scared of telling me?” She asked.

  Fiona has no idea.

  “There are things that you cannot even begin to fathom, but I’ll tell you the truth about everything. I feel like I owe it to you.”

  “Babe, I’ll listen to all that you have to say, but I really do not think that it will matter.” Fiona is very stubborn.

  “Maybe I can make you change your mind if you know everything about me,” the vampire said. Fiona rolls her eyes. “Maybe I can get you to see past the fool’s gold to make you realize all the treasures that you already possess.”

  She rolls her eyes again. Her mind seems to be already made up.

  “I don’t think that you’ll change my mind,” Fiona said.

  “This black soul may not be capable of a true, fairy tale love, but I cannot turn you without imploring you to change your mind. I’ll do anything to make you give up on this idea of being a monster like myself. You need to know everything…everything.”

  He seems like a defeated man.

  Fiona can see David’s emotions on the surface, but she has no concept of what it is like to be a vampire. She finds it difficult to agree with his logic. Fortunately, the beautiful woman is open to discussion about it. At least she is not completely close-minded as the vampire suggested.

  “I really think that you glamorizing the idea of living eternally and never aging,” he said.

  “Who wouldn’t want to live forever?” Fiona asked.

  It is tough to escape that question. Not many would give up the chance of eternal life. She believes in her decision to be like David, wholeheartedly. Living eternally without the fear of death is appealing. This is the pitfall that has doomed so many others before her. It is far too easy to fall into that trap.

  “It is appealing to you that you always remain beautiful and will never have to lose our love due to your mortal death. Isn’t it?” He asked.

  “Of course it is appealing.”

  “This is clouding your judgment.”

  “David, I have put a great deal of thought into this. It is my decision to make,” Fiona said.

  “It’s just not worth eternal damnation,” the vampire said. Fiona has thought about it, but she is blind to the reality of it all. “The negatives will outweigh the benefits by far. Your heart will cease to beat as a human being, and you will become something else…something vile and evil. If there is a shred of my humanity left inside me, then this is it shining through the layers of filth.”

  David is trying his best to educate her. It is painfully obvious that he is getting nowhere with this conversation. Her negative body language will not budge.

  Her facial expressions are impervious to his reason. It is time to give her a dose of reality.

  David lights up a cigarette and takes a long slow drag. The brooding vampire enjoys smoking cigar
ettes, and he has a weak psychological addiction to them. The oral fixation mildly quells his hunger for blood. Fortunately for him, he is immune to cancer and the other related diseases caused by smoking them. Fortunately for Fiona, he chews gum regularly. Vampires were never known for their fresh breath anyways.

  “My real name is Davide Alighieri,” the vampire said. David exhales the smoke from his cigarette. “I was born in Sicily on August 18th in the year of 1247 AD.”

  “That would make you like…over 700 years old.” Fiona gasped uncontrollably. She is engulfed in a cloud of rancid smoke.

  My mother, Giana Rose Alighieri, died while giving birth to me. From the stories of the village, my mother was a very beautiful woman. My father Pietro Alighieri was a peasant winemaker who lived outside of Palermo. Pietro was a hard working decent man. Father never remarried after my mother and never had any other children. He was devastated by the loss of my mother, whom he loved with all of his being.

  Pietro felt somehow responsible for her death because he had gotten her pregnant before they were officially wed. Father thought the Lord had punished him for his sins of lust. It wasn’t his fault, but he still felt as if he had a hand in my mother’s death. The guilt over her passing weighed on him like an emotional anchor. His guilt drowned him.

  At least once a day, for all the days I could remember, I’d see him crying by her gravestone. He would wipe his eyes quickly and pretend he wasn’t weeping to be strong for me. For every birthday, he’d leave her a rose on her grave because she was as beautiful as the rose itself. He raised me to fear God and listen to the word of the Lord. We spent a great deal of time in the cathedral listening to the words of Christ. I was fascinated with the Catholic religion and embraced their teachings.

  My father always spoke to me like a man in an adult tongue. Father never sugarcoated anything regarding life because he wanted me to grow to be a real man. He didn’t want me to make the same mistakes that he had made in his past. We always worked hard making the wine that he sold for almost nothing. His business barely put food on the table for us, but we made the best of the situation. We always gave thanks to God for what we did have.