by Jamal Shakur
Vampire
[vam-pahyuhr]
A preternatural being, commonly believed to be a reanimated corpse that is said to suck the blood of sleeping persons at night.
-Webster’s Dictionary-
The Slayer
His existence has always been tied to the vampire murders that He had tracked some ten years ago at the ripe old age of sixteen. His knowledge of slayers and vampires were regulated to TV and the internet, He didn’t think they existed.
It was a breezy autumn day and he was invited to of all things a Halloween party. He was like any pubescent overflowing testosterone male, he was curious but his curiosity was offset with weed. They were all in a festive juvenile mood, it wasn’t hard for them to be this way, and their age dictated this behavior. He noticed right away the strange attitude of some of the revelers. They had a cold and deathly look about them. One female, He thought at the time glanced at him with a romantic stare that also resembled someone who was about to devour their favorite food. It was obvious unbeknownst to him, he was correct about the later observation.
The music was set to the ultimate ear splitting volume. All he could see was the lights and darkness of the crowd. Then it suddenly went completely dark and then the light came on slightly. For some reason he was pushed towards the back exit. Blood was everywhere smeared on the wall, ceiling and splashed on the body of some, especially in their mouths. Suddenly someone push him from behind and out the exit door he fell through. The figure was a tall statuette female. She looked at him with a curious eye of disgust and said, “You don’t know what you’re doing here and what’s happening, do you?” She announced with hostility She said further, “You are at the party of the underground Vampire Nation; they seek those who are ignorant of their movement, people such as you are utilized for their feeding ground.”
“So I take it that you are not one of them because you wouldn’t have saved me,” I said with humor that surprised even me. “That is correct, I am a slayer, I am one who tries to eliminate as many of these bloodthirsty beast as possible.” He stayed with this woman for months and was trained in the arts of the slayer. We visited all of their dwellings and killed as many as possible. He began to feel as bloodthirsty as they were; they were at one point human and he could see his humanity slipping away slowly and deliberately.
He was a student at the University of Penn but he had dropped out because of his activity which seemed like a crusade that he had to devote his whole being too. He took a course in forensic psychology at the University of Penn that was taught by the famous Philadelphia detective Lucky Lomax. He was fascinated by the intellect of the professor who taught a common sense approach to the capturing of criminals. Baron tried to tell Lomax of his quest and the underworld of vampires in his midst but he spurned him. The good professor thought that he was mentally ill; this was the presumption of most people who heard the subject of the world of vampires. No one in the outside world knew of his profession or his birthright. They only knew of his lifestyle with fiction displayed in film and books. But Baron had in the last six years had eliminated 100’s of vampires but the master had eluded him, without the elimination of the head the snake would slither it’s hideous bloody appearance forever.
He followed the new serial killings in the news and he was fascinated by the diligence of detective Lomax, however his persistence was for not because the man he was pursuing wasn’t human. Baron checked the internet for the different pathways of the vampire culture. It was a very curious situation, one could find out about such things in the modern world. In the past this life style was underground and unknown. But there’s so much info out there that some wouldn’t believe it anyway.
He had followed the so-called Ripper story with a heighten curiosity and one thing was for sure he was increasing everyday into his blood thirst which would eventually evolve him into the master, no one like him has ever been seen before except perhaps Vlad the Impaler himself.
March 21
I received a strange message on my email; it knew everything about the last two murders which were vampirism in nature. The unnamed messenger knew everything about the murder as if he were the unsub himself. One thing gave me pause about that theory is that the person wanted to meet me at the police station which I answered him in the affirmative.
A strange person arrived at the police precinct at approximately eight in the morning. I was surprised to say the least. He was dressed from head to toe in all black. He wore a black trench coat to overlay his ensemble. He resembled the guy in the Matrix and he was just as strange acting as the characters in that movie. I don’t know what he was going to tell me about the unsubs vampire murders but he looked more like a vampire himself.
He reached out his hand and said, “Hello Detective Lomax, my name is Baron Swartzman, I have been tracking your investigation with enthusiasm and must say and I don’t mean any harm, but you don’t have a clue of what you’re dealing with.”
“Well Mr. Swartzman, I would like to know what you know and why you don’t think we don’t have a clue since we’ve been tracking this unsub for over a year,” I said sarcastically.
He took a long breath and held it for a few seconds and began to respond almost reluctantly, “First the “man” you are tracking is not a man, he is a vampire and rather he is are isn’t actually a creature of the night is to no avail, it is what he thinks he is and not what he in fact in reality is.” So you must approach him in the later in the way he perceives himself.”
I looked at him with a long stare of bewilderment as to what the hell was he saying.
“The people of your world don’t have a clue, there is an underground that you don’t know exists, your unsub as you call him travels in that environment and is perceived as being a king, each one of his blood appetizer’s has been downloaded to sites on the internet where all of the followers of the night have kept up, “He said and finished nonchalantly. I looked and some of the detectives looked at him incredulously, I said, “That’s amazing to hear but could you start off by giving us some of the addresses to the sites that you know of.”
It was incredible there were about twenty sites dealing with vampirism and there were clubs and bars in every major city of the United States. But what really interested me was the blogging on the sites and that’s where we discovered our unsub. His blogger’s name was apropos, ‘a New Blood Sucker’. His history on this site went back about ten years, it specified his desires and passions for murders but his actual action into the realm of murder and vampirism didn’t show up until this year. His entire blog
was similar to a blue print into his distorted evil mind; the only thing that he didn’t leave was an address to find him. Our investigation would have included undercover placement of officers at these vampire clubs and interviewing some of these people from the internet. The job for this undercover assignment would probably go to detective Denise, since she has the youngest appearance in our squad and the vampire bar crowd is basically a college age environment, she would fit right in.
Ch 18
“Life isn't weird: it's just the people in it.”
-Under Cover-
Denise was astounded at the atmosphere; the first club she attended was the Blood Sucker on 5th and race. The environment was similar to the grudge scene; everyone was wearing black and had a heavy application of makeup and black fingernail polish. It was the usual young adult teen crowd but the most disturbing vibe about the whole place was the smell. It was a smell that a homicide detective was accustomed to, it was the smell of death; it could go undetected to the laymen of course you had the mixture of perfume and alcohol but death olfactory was intimately present. There were vampire movies blin
king on off on the walls from the silent original flicks to the up to date modern cinema. But this was an extraordinary happening here. She noticed that the crowd was getting thinner and she was the only one constantly sitting in the same spot. There were a few noticeable odd looking characters but the atmosphere was consistently normal. By chance a slither of light bounced off the wall and the detective noticed for a split second a massive two door exit from the front near the stage area. For the next two hours she kept her eyes on that area of interest and sure enough a figure dressed in all black proceeded to drag a young lady by her hair as she struggled through the doors. Denise immediately unstrapped her weapon and followed through the door briskly and without hesitation. Jackpot, this is what she’s been looking for all-night. The room was covered with blood and bodies of young women who were positioned in all different areas of the room with their necks noticeably opened agape with blood spilling all over them. She panned the room over and over again for a few seconds but there was no living person there, all was dead but she could have sworn she seen someone come in dragging a vic.
She reached for her phone which was on automatic ring for detective Lomax and said , “ Lucky you got to get down here at once there is at least a dozen or more dead bodies at the club, get down here as soon as possible we need extra man power to question the people at the scene,” she said with excitement.
I arrived on the scene, it was a lot of chaos in the main room of the bar but the turmoil and action was in the back room. My assistant all ready arrived at the scene and was examining as many of the bodies as he could. He nodded to me at the very edge of the room and I acknowledge his greeting. “So what have we got here,” I said with a minimal amount of vocabulary as possible. Lance was a good man especially at scenes such as these; he had a real cool calm about himself especially when the carnage is so great. “There are at least fifteen bodies, so I concentrated randomly on two, they both have at least a gallon of blood sucked from them and human mucus in the wounds, so I guess we can thoroughly examine the rest at the morgue,” he said with his cool demeanor. My phone was going bonkers; the catchy tune from the TV detective series Law and Order that was playing over and over again that my daughter Mia downloaded was getting on my nerves. “Yes who is it,” I shouted. The voice that answered was unfamiliar. “I see you have undressed my masterpiece, this is a feast of fools and I loved it, you know it is, don’t you? “With that he howled and laughed like a man that was well pleased with himself.
I hurried downstairs to the morgue to see exactly what I had. The first body was a young woman; she was a very young and incredibly pretty. There was no sexual contact, Lance was already there hovering over the girl’s body trying to find some kind of clue. I talked rather low just over a whisper to get his attention, “So what have you got so far.” He said in a voice imitating my volume, “The body shows a young teenage girl approximately 18 years of age. She was a virgin and there was no sexual contact, as in previous murders committed by the perp, there was an indication of human mucus in the throat with approximately a liter of confiscated blood.”
The body was immaculate, her finger nails and toes were recently manicured and polished. Her teeth were capped with new expensive bridge work. This was no hooker or a homeless vic but someone well to do. With this type there was sure to be a righteous uproar from the press and the mayor’s office, all of which would put pressure on me and my fellow detectives. To say the least, all of the dozen are so bodies were in the same shape and the modus operandi was the same, they were pubescent white female teenagers. Why was this case unknown to me? His signature and his type of victim have changed and his reasoning for killing has changed also. He was confusing as far as serial killers go but I’ve seen this before, rarely but I’ve come across it. The confusion on his part has changed because he is so in love with himself that he wants to be the best at the murders he’s committing that he has co-opt the methods of other serial killers. By the easy way the perp was able to move around and commit these despicable acts exemplified his acceptance by these kids. I later found out from the so-called slayer that my assumption was exactly correct; this guy was a star amongst the underground vampire nation. He went undisturbed for many years killing a few, just a few to go unnoticed until he became greedy for the lust for blood. His blood lust transformed him into what he is today, a monster. I wasn’t as susceptible to the idea of vampires, I’ve seen them all come and go and the one thing that they all have in common, they believe that they are special and add on to themselves a persona of superman are avenging angel but they are as I have reiterated , monsters.
We had a lead, our boy had been noticed at a number of cyber coffee houses, he would have went unnoticed if it wasn’t for his strange appearance. I started at the first place on our list; it was a funky little coffee joint near the strip of whores that displayed their sexual wares. I spotted the proprietor, he was a dirty looking character and was quite unusually unkempt for someone serving food even if it was only coffee and donuts but they didn’t come in here for the cuisine they only wanted to use the Wi-Fi he possessed to go online. He nodded at me and I acknowledged him likewise and said, “My name is inspector Lucky Lomax and I have a few questions for you.” He didn’t respond to me and rudely ignored me as if I didn’t exist and finally said, “Look, I don’t have time for this shit and don’t have to answer a damn thing to you are anyone else.”
I gave him and long stare, “You know buddy you have the filthiest pig sty I ever seen, and the health department could receive one call from me and you would be closed down in minutes, you got that.” I got his attention then, he look at me frightened and this time responded to my inquiries in a polite and timely fashion. “What do you want,” he said with a sudden kindness in his voice.
“You happened to mentioned to one of the patrolling officers about someone that you thought was strange acting that frequented your establishment,” I said.
“Look the guy had these dark yellow eyes and he was cloaked in this black heavy long coat in the middle of the hottest day in Philly, so like a good citizen I told the cops.” He said with a smile.
“Look I’m goanna send one of our sketch artist down here to get a composite of this guy you seen and would appreciate your cooperation.”
I headed back to headquarters and soon as I stepped into the precinct, Omar gave me a funny nod. The big man was always introverted when he thought something to be very strange. “The sketch artist just faxed the drawing of the perp, you wanna look at it,” he said hauntingly. I could see why he was acting the way he was. The perp’s eyes were a dark yellow and skin was pale as snow. If I didn’t know it would seem like it was some sort of disguise. We checked the other places on our list and got a similar ID of the perp and to the man all of the witnesses noticed his strange horrific demeanor. When I was at the coffee house I took mental note of the coffee shop and remember something that was strange. There were approximately ten customers in the restaurant and as I entered the establishment all of their eyes strangely moved in my direction. This isn’t unusual but the strange part is that they were typing on the laptops and looking at me at the same time. The place was a dump but all of the previous places were the same. But this one had an ominous vibe that was strange and nasty. I happen to peruse a couple of the laptop screens and the website was of the horror genre and especially the vampire type. There was very pretty young white girl at the counter dressed in all black with her black hair slick and pulled back with what looked like a pound of hair grease. I beckon to her with a kind smile, which she responded to with a relaxing smile. “I am a detective with the Philly police department and have a few questions about one of the patrons that have visited your establishment recently.”
I picked up the picture slowly and placed it on the counter. She responded with surprise and wonderment. “If I didn’t know it, I could swear that is Mr. Strauss the professor at the University of Penn, I took two classes with him in anthropology.” While it seemed like a good
idea it was to my way of thinking, a road that I would have to take to see where it leads.
Ch 19
I arrived on the University of Penn campus at approximately 10 in the morning. It was a nice campus as far as urban campus’s goes but I wasn’t there to assess the surroundings or environment. I look in on Professor Strauss class just to get a good look at him and how he handled himself. He was into his world of explaining the text of lecture which sounded as though he had been giving that same lecture for twenty years which was very possible since he undoubtedly taught the same lessons day in and day out. He was a brawny man with a slight English accent and quiet demeanor; the students seem to respond to him very cordially. There was nothing strange here he seemed very normal, I would have to get a further appraisal of him when I interviewed him. I waited until the class ended and the students departed to approach him. I walked up to him and he seemed startled but it could have been a contrive behavior to throw me off. I said, “My name is detective Lomax and I would like to ask you a few questions.”
“Questions about what,” He seemed to blurt out with conviction and a very defensive attitude.
I handed him the photograph of the suspect and I was looking at him and could imagine him with the beard and the hoodie and it was uncanny the similarities of the picture and what was standing in front of me. He almost said with a whisper, “So what’s this supposed to mean.” He threw the photo down on the desk after making the statement.
“It would appear that someone has linked you to our sketch, and I am curious why a professor of your stature would go around to different establishments dressed in this most curious fashion.” I said looking at him with my most inner investigative eye.