Purge of the Vampires (Book 1)
Never Wake the Dead
Edgar Bajaña
EdgarBooks.com
Purge of the Vampires BOOK 1 Never Wake the Dead Copyright © 2017 by Edgar A. Bajaña
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No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Interior Artwork by Candice N. Gillett and Edgar A. Bajaña
Contents
Let’s Connect
Purge of the Vampires
I. NEVER WAKE THE DEAD
1. Never Wake the Dead
2. Violets Don’t Last Forever
3. Sophie Dreamed of the Sun
4. The Girl in the Violet Dress
5. Chronicles from the Dead
6. The Night Shift
7. The Missing Flower
8. When Dead Birds Sing
9. Shadows of the Night
10. Hanging Garden of the Beast
II. THE DEAD ARE EVERYWHERE
11. The Letter of the Beast
12. She of Ten Thousand Names
13. Goddess of the Rainbow
14. A Garbage Bag on the Street
15. Echoes of the Night
16. Noche de la Negra
17. Children of the Serpent
18. Constellation of the Beast
III. THE DEAD NEVER REST
19. If It Bleeds, It Leads
20. The Hunting Fields
21. It Was Never A Dream
22. The Hunger Inside
23. The Man in the Cemetery
24. The Dead Speak at Calvary Cemetery
25. Veneration of the Dead
Let’s Connect
Let’s Connect
EdgarBajana.com
For the Vanishing Twin
We were together in this world
for only a short night,
when I saw both your hearts
blinking
like the slashed cursor on a black screen.
There was once two. Now, there’s one.
For a moment, we were four. And now, we are three.
But I know that one bright day our souls will spiral into each other again, like stars across the deep night.
And when we do,
we will continue to rage
against the ever-lasting night
for a moment more.
“I knew they would not be reported missing. I picked prostitutes because I thought I could kill as many of them as I wanted without getting caught.” - The Green River Serial Killer.
I
NEVER WAKE THE DEAD
1
Never Wake the Dead
When I was young, my mother always said the Devil came in many ways and tonight was no different.
I was about to sneak out of Emily’s Brooklyn brownstone apartment by the East River, when I saw a black framed photograph hanging on the wall. Indigo light passed over a portrait of her and her husband.
He was away, while I was here with her.
How could I judge Emily’s relationship, when I was doing the same. Except I wasn’t married. But, it felt just as dirty.
The affair with Emily started a month ago when we ran into each other at Flushing Meadow Park in Queens. There was a laugh here and touch there. Since then, I never told her much about myself. As far as she knew, I was an eccentric New York City cop with a fire engine red revolver underneath my navy blue trench coat. I don’t think she cared to know anything more.
So, I never told her that I had a special talent that wasn’t like anything that she had ever known. However, the things that I could do felt more like a curse, than a gift. For some reason, I was damned with a pair of eyes that could see the dead and a pair of ears that could listen to the afterlife.
I was about to open the front door, when Emily caught me by surprise. She was standing in the hallway, swaying in dark, wearing not much of anything. I thought she was just going to give me a kiss goodbye.
Instead, she tightly clenched my forearm, digging her long nails into me.
This was my fault, so I took the pain. “What’s the deal, M? I asked Emily. But I could not pull away. Her nails were starting to rip through the sleeve of my coat. Then, she pushed me into the shadow of the door of her apartment and said, “James, you’re not telling me the truth.”
“What are you talking about. Of course, I am.”
“You’re not.” She continued, “Eventually, you’re going to face who you really are.”
I looked into Emily’s dark eyes and I could not recognize her.
“Come on, what are you trying to get at M?” I asked her.
She placed her hand on my chest. “James, you will see the world fall apart before your very eyes. There is no escaping the night.”
“Jesus, Emily. Snap out of it.”
Then, her eyes went white and she pushed me even harder against the door. She got in my face and made sure that I paid attention to every word she said. With her right hand, she clenched my neck and dug her nails into my skin.
This was my fault. I knew it. This always happened when I dated a women for more than a month. Strangely, this never happened with Charlene. Maybe that’s why I was meant to be with her.
So, I took the pain. I deserved the pain. I just kept looking at Emily, trying to calm her with my eyes. Then, she leaned in closer.
“Remember your creed. Rule number one, never wake the dead. Rule two, the dead are everywhere. Three, the dead never rest.”
My arm was searing with pain.
“Wake up, Emily! Wake up!”
I tried to to push her off of me, but couldn’t. She was unmovable. Her arms were solid and heavy as tree trunks. Then, she leaned toward the side of my face and whispered in my ear.
“At night, always remember to never lose heart. For love is the only chance you have to survive a time, when the night will never end.”
All of a sudden, Emily released my arm. Her eyes were no longer pale white.
“Why did you say those things, Emily?”
“What do you mean, James? I’m saying good bye. That’s all.” She said in her cute little way, as if what happened, never happened.
Thinking twice about it, I decided not to bring it up to her. I knew from this moment that this relationship was over. There was no way that I could continue with Emily. I rubbed her narrow shoulder and kissed her on the cheek. I walked down the stairs of her brownstone apartment.
And just like that, the affair was over and that was the last time I saw her. There was something that Emily said that I could not forget. I needed to walk for a while. I needed some air.
I walked through the Brooklyn Promenade and over the Brooklyn Bridge and all the way up the westside of Manhattan. I felt bad for cheating on Charlene and regretted getting mixed up with Emily.
Charlene was such a good person. Her and I once talked about having kids. But lately, our relationship wasn’t going so well. She deserved someone better than me, I thought. But it was always hard to let her go.
I was thinking of a way to make it up to Charlene when a car horn scared the shit out of me. I turned around and saw a pair of bright headlights, speeding straight toward me.
My heart sank into my stomach. But, a part of me wished that this life was over.
The car light shined in my face, and I felt a little relief. Living with this curse was finally over.
I closed my eyes, waiting for the never-ending darkness to engulf me.
However, I did not die. At the last possible moment, the racer sped past me. I was an inch away from having my spin
e shattered into a thousand pieces. The car moved so fast by me that the tail wind twirled me in place, like a spinning top.
The whole time I was paralyzed by fear, letting the wind take me any which way. For a second, I caught a glimpse of the driver in the side mirror, a tattoo covered skinhead. His face was loaded with tattoos. He was young. He was probably the type that was in and out of prison. The driver looked like a ghoul driving at night.
I caught my breath as the car sped toward a glass building. I had seen this car before in one of the magazines at the police station. It was a sleek sports car, a black and red Bugatti Veyron heading straight into a glass pate window.
The driver lost control of the car and became more unbalanced, screeching side to side. Then it happened. The car flipped over three times, crashing into a glass building, which housed a fancy car dealership. The red and white security spotlights turned on
Hyperventilating, I made my way across the opposite side of the street and leaned against a bare wall of a warehouse. I sat on the empty sidewalk, half in shadow, thinking about the question that popped into my head, a question that I buried some time ago.
What if I died?
I promised Charlene not to think like that. Only she knew that I had issues. But I could not tell her everything. I told her that I had visions and that was all. I couldn't tell her the truth, that I could commune with the dead. That’s stupid cause then I’ll lose her.
Besides, I was a freak, something that should have never been.
Would I lie to myself like all the dead did? I hated thinking about it. But this life-threatening moment made me wonder who I would redeem myself for those three days after I died.
Redeem the dead, even myself.
Everyone had three nights to haunt the earth after they died, even me. It didn’t matter if they were Christian, Muslim, Jews, atheist or anarchist. Everyone got three days. Why three days? I never cared to ask. I only remember my mother’s words.
On the third night, the dead rose into the light or fell into darkness.
My mother’s favorite passage made me think about my father. He did not go away pretty, at all. There was a time when I saw my father’s spirit fall into a dark abyss. For three days, we walked the night.
I wondered what I would do with those three days. What would be my act of redemption? Or would I just forget who I was, once I was on the other side and become nothing worth remembering.
This question would have been my last on this earthly plane if the sports car coming at me like a machine out of hell did not miss me.
I looked across the Eighth Avenue at the wreckage. From what I heard, the building popped twice. The car crashed into a glass wall and slid into a circular stairwell entirely made of glass. The glass came crashing down on the car. Shards of glass flew everywhere, spreading into the street. Plates of falling glass sliced one of the tires to shreds.
Sirens whaled in the distance. I looked down the street and saw the police coming down the Avenue toward the scene of the crash. The red and blue emergency lights illuminated the canyon of buildings. Then, I looked back at the lobby of the building. Shards of glass scattered throughout the street.
“Well, that’s a mess.”
At that moment, I could have slipped into a shadow and disappeared. I should have. I didn’t want to get involved. It was late at night, and the paperwork was a hassle.
I got up off the sidewalk and was about to leave before the police got there when I thought about the driver of the car. I was sure that the driver was dead. The car was totaled.
No one could have survived that.
But, I wouldn’t be sure, until I witnessed his ghost for myself. It was always that way. Then, another thought crossed my head. What if he wasn't dead? I had to make sure that the driver didn’t get away before the cops could get on the scene. They were about ten blocks away.
I slipped out of a deep shadow and started walking toward the scene of the crash. The glass cracked under my black boots. The cops were coming closer, and the emergency red and white lights lit up the side of my face, highlighting the wildness of my hair.
From my fitted blue trench coat, I pulled out my trusty fire engine red revolver.
I climbed onto the showroom lobby of the car dealership and approached the black and red Bugatti Veyron.
The closer I got to the car, the more I heard someone struggling. There was the crunching sound of glass as if someone were moving around. I pointed my gun in the direction of the sound and cautiously stepped forward.
The driver squirmed out the car. His left hand was severed and laid a couple of feet from him. With the use of his one good arm, he made his way through the mangled passenger window. He reached out toward something black and covered in glass. It was a gun. He was so determined to shoot someone.
I stayed quiet, keeping my gun trained on his forehead.
Then, blood gushed from the driver’s mouth, spilling over the broken glass.
He wasn’t going to make it. With that much blood flowing out of him, he was bound to pass out, then die. There was no chance of him, reaching the gun a couple of feet away.
Suddenly, he screamed, “No!”
He quickly grabbed the gun and made his crooked legs raise him from the ground. The driver pointed the gun at me, as he howled.
Jesus, I thought. The devil must have got to him. He was going to shoot me. There was nothing else that I could do. I fired off one, into the head. Always the head. Quickly, he fell over.
The emergency sirens were at full blast and cops were on the scene securing the perimeter. The red and white lights reflected off the shards of glass over the floor.
But something was wrong. With a hole in his head, the driver did not stop. There was still some life in him and I watched him struggle.
In the end, the driver gasped, and his eyes turned dull.
The last time I saw a criminal die, he came back to life. I hoped that this wasn’t going to be one of those nights.
The cops from the Manhattan precinct surrounded the showroom of the car dealership. They stepped over the glass. At first, the cops on the scene yelled at me.
“Drop your gun!”
"I'm a cop!" I yelled back.
Then, I heard Officer Charlene Harris take command of the scene, “Stand down. This man is Officer James Night from Queens. Stand down.”
And they did.
The whole time, I kept my gun trained on the dead driver’s forehead. I was cautious. The skinhead’s face was riddled with tattoos, gang markings, and cult symbols. He had a Roman crown around his head with horns. Underneath it all, he looked young, mid-thirties. The blood still flowed from the driver’s mouth and dripped on the floor as he stretched his arm toward the gun.
Then, the ‘Crossing’ happened.
The driver gasped a final breath, and the eyes turned pale white, like milk. The body gave out. The driver's head fell, and he was dead.
I knew it because I saw a glowing light growing around him. A second later, his spirit broke free of his body in a burst of bright red and white light.
"James. It’s over.” called Charlene.
"Not yet, Charlene. Just keep the others away.“
The spirit of the driver continued crawling out of the car as if he didn’t die. I watched him, as he kept crawling through the shattered glass on the marble floor.
Every time, I couldn't believe it. The driver thought he still had a chance.
Even in death, we all tend to fool ourselves. Maybe, I was the same way too.
I dropped my weapon, watching the ghost of the skinhead picking himself up off the ground. He braced his broken arm, as he hobbled toward the street. The driver’s spirit was about to disappear into the night when he turned around to look at me.
I quickly looked down at his dead body over the shattered glass, making sure the driver’s ghost didn’t catch me looking at him. As long as the driver’s spirit didn’t know that I could see him, then I would be okay.
; As mother used to say, Never Wake The Dead.
When I looked back up, the ghost of the driver was gone and on the run for the next three days. He was now out there with one chance to find redemption. Most likely, he wouldn’t find it. Of course, I could help him find his way in this new world. But, I quit that game a year ago.
Everything has been going fine, until now.
But the dead aren’t my problem, not anymore.
At the end of the third day, the skinhead will pass over to the other side. To hell or heaven, I didn’t care. As long as I pretended not to see him, the ghost of the driver wouldn’t know that I could see him. Thank god I found a sense of rest from dead.
Suddenly, I felt a woman's hand on my shoulder. She painted her nails purple. It was Officer Charlene Harris. Regardless, I stared past her.
“It’s over James. Relax,” she said. “He’s not moving anymore.”
I looked over at Charlene’s face with dark brown curly hair. Sometimes, she reminded me of Vanessa Williams, the actress, with her green eyes and fair black skin.
“You okay?” she asked me. She was always kind.
“Yeah.”
“What happened, James?
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