The Undead Heart

by Tate Jackson

  “We have a lot to talk about. Are you sure you want to waste our time together in a library?”

  “I can check out twenty books at a time. We’ll just grab what we want and come back here,” she answered with her mouth half full of food.

  They got to the library right as they were opening. They ended up checking out every book that said anything about vampyre hearts. They looked through all of them back in the dorm room. Most were just about what to stick through a vampyres heart to kill them. There were two books that said vampyre hearts always beat, only very slowly. They threw them in the crap pile.

  Then, she felt his mood change. “What is it?” she asked over the top of the book she was reading.

  He looked even paler, if that was at all possible. He didn’t answer, just stared at her. She took the book he been looking at from his hands and read the title. He’d been reading Vampyre Lover by Potter Harris. She looked back to the beginning of the chapter and started to read:

  The vampyre heart, which does not normally beat, will beat when intimate with their true lover; their soul mate. The soul mate proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the historically known soulless vampyre does indeed have a soul. The soul mate of a vampyre will always be an unchanged {someone who has not been turned into a vampyre} human. The drawback to finding this lover is that while the vampyre heart is beating, it is just as delicate and susceptible to damage as the human heart.

  “Could this be true?” she asked him. “I think it must be. It’s the only explanation that makes sense,” he answered, but he had already lost her. She was rattling away on her computer.

  “What are you doing?”

  “This book is only two years old,” she stated as if that was supposed to make sense to him.

  Then she had the phone in her hand. Before he could ask what she was doing now, she held up her finger to ‘shush’ him.

  “Mr. Harris? This is Beck Stockdale, and I’m studying parapsychology courses at Duke this year. I was just reading your book and have some questions about your explanation on the beating heart and was wondering if I can come by and talk to you about it…” she paused to listen. “Yes, I can come now,” she said, writing an address on a scrap of paper. “Thank you. I’ll see you in about twenty minutes. Goodbye,” she said and hung up.

  “What are you doing?” Richard snapped at her. “I’m sorry. Did you not just sit here and listen to the conversation? I’m going to meet the man that wrote this book and ask him some questions,” she said as she walked to the door. “I’ll be fine. I’ll be back in a couple of hours. You stay here and spit out some M&M’s,” she said and shut the door behind her.

  When she walked out of the front door of the dorm, he was already outside in the parking lot.

  “You can’t go, Richard. We don’t know this guy or how he got this information.”

  “I thought you said it was going to be fine?”

  “Richard…” she started, but he stopped her. “You’re not going without me, Beck.”

  She knew he meant it, and that there was nothing she could say or do that would make him change his mind.

  “Fine, come on then,” she said and headed for her car.

  “Let’s take my car,” he said, and steered her to the other side of the parking lot.

  He stopped at a beautiful 1969 Pontiac Trans Am. It was painted flat black with green metal flake flames up the hood, over the roof, and down the trunk, factory Pontiac rally wheels cut and made 8” deep in the front and 10 ½ inches on the back.

  “This is your car?” she asked in awe.

  “Yes. I hear it’s a bit of a classic,” he answered, a small smile curving his lips.

  “Open the hood,” she said and stepped back as he popped the hood latch. “455 H/O, 4 speed, Rock Crusher Muncie.”

  “How did you know that?” he asked, clearly shocked by her knowledge

  She laughed, “Bev had a boyfriend for three years who knew how to build muscle cars from the wheels up. It’s all he ever talked about. After a while, you pick it up.”

  They got in, and the car started with a deep growl. She watched him as he drove. She’d had sex with the man, and she didn’t even know that he could drive, much less that he had a car like this. She didn’t really know anything about him. She knew he was a vampyre but knew nothing about his life.

  Still looking at him, she realized it didn’t matter. She loved him. It made no sense, but she knew it was true. She thinks that she may have loved him since the day she was twelve years old and he’d lifted her bike off of her. She held out her hand to him now and he took it, smiling at her.

  “I had a dream last night. Bev’s gonna meet a man. Actually, she’s going to meet her mate. I’m so excited for her. She deserves a good man,” she said enthusiastically.

  “I thought you couldn’t see your family’s future?”

  “I can’t. I’m pretty sure I was seeing his. That’s how I know he’s a good man.”

  “I’m happy for her. I know I haven’t formally met her yet, but I know how good she’s been to you.”

  His cool hand felt so natural in hers. Throughout her life, whenever he had touched her, his hands were cool but never cold. It stood to reason that he would stay about room temperature, or whatever the temperature was around him.

  They pulled up in front of the address she had written down, and Richard reached over and turned off the car with his left hand so as not to let go of her hand.

  “There’s a vampyre in there,” he said.

  “Yeah, I thought there might be.”

  “The vampyre in there is going to know I’m here, too. We can leave,” he offered.

  “No. We need to find out what’s going on with your heart,” she said as she got out of the car.

  She was halfway up the steps to the door when he put his arm around her waist, stopping her. He was wearing short sleeves, and she could feel his cool arm through her thin shirt.

  “We do this my way. That means you stay behind me.”

  She let him have his way only because she could feel how afraid he was for her. She stood behind him as he knocked on the door. A man answered but before she could get a good look at him, Richard had turned, swooped her up, and had her on the other side of the long front porch, all before she could blink.

  “You are a hunter,” Richard said in an unearthly hiss.

  She tried to get a better look at the man, but Richard was still blocking her.

  “I was a hunter, but no more my friend. I mean you and your female no harm.”

  “He’s telling the truth, Richard,” Beck said.

  He immediately took a step to the side. She knew that Richard didn’t trust this man, but he obviously trusted Beck’s senses and she was touched by it.

  She could see the man now. He looked all of 25 years old, was covered in tattoos, had piercings in his ears she could put her thumbs through, and a dark red Mohawk.

  “Where are you imprisoning the vampyre?” Richard growled. “I don’t know what’s going on anymore than you do Richard, but there is no unhappiness in this house.” Beck said.

  “I’m Potter Harris,” he said in a strong Irish accent. “Please come in.” Beck went through the door with Richard stuck to her side.

  “Mr. Harris, we just have a few questions,” Beck started.

  “Call me Potter, and please, have a seat,” he said leading them into a small but comfortable living room.

  Beck had just sat down when she realized Potter had frozen in his tracks and was staring at Richard.

  “Holy Christ!” Potter gasped. “You’re Richard Jaxon.”

  “Have we met?” Richard asked.

  “Not exactly,” Potter responded. He looked slowly back at Beck and said, “I don’t think I’m the person to answer your questions. Please excuse me while I get my wife.”

  “This is very strange,” Richard said. Before Beck had a chance to reply, Potter walked back into the room. “She will be down in a moment. May I offer you so
mething to drink?”

  “No thank you,” she answered politely as if the room hadn’t become full of tension.

  At that moment, a young woman appeared in the doorway. “Richard?”

  “Jenny,” Richard gasped and was across the room hugging her, though again, Beck had barely seen him move. “We thought the hunters had gotten you. We came home, and the house was torn apart. We thought that the hunters had been there. How is this possible?”

  “I came home and saw the house as well. I thought the hunters had gotten you and Leso. Leso! Is he…” Jenny started to ask, but Richard had put his finger across her lips.

  “He’s fine. He’s not here with me today, but we have been together all these years.”

  “What are you doing here?” Jenny asked. “How did you know I was here?”

  “I didn’t,” he said, turning Jenny by her shoulders and pointing at Beck.

  Jenny stared at her for two seconds, and then squealed, “BECK!”

  Again, Beck barely saw the vampyre move, but was suddenly swept up and was being danced around the room at a dizzying speed.

  “Beck, Beck, Beck,” Jenny chanted.

  Then Richard was there, peeling them apart. “Jenny, she doesn’t know you, yet,” he laughed.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot,” Jenny said.

  But Beck was all smiles. She didn’t know Jenny, but she already liked her a lot. After they had all calmed down and sat down, the questions started.

  “Where’s Leso?” Jenny asked.

  “I left him back at the college,” Richard said.

  “He’s at the college?” Beck asked in surprise.

  “Yes. He didn’t think I would be able to leave you without help when the time comes,” he replied.

  “But why do you have to leave her?” Jenny asked shocked. Richard sighed, “So she will be better prepared when she goes back this time.”

  “Go back? Why would she go back? She’s here. You’re here. Why in the world would you let her go back?” she demanded. “You, Leso, Beck, and I are all that’s left Jenny. She may be able to change that. Wouldn’t you like to have them all back if you could?” he asked.

  “I didn’t know I had the three of you!” Jenny cried. “Please don’t do this,” she pleaded to Beck as she turned to her with streams of blood pouring down her cheeks. It startled Beck at first. Then she realized that the blood was Jenny’s tears. “You don’t know what it was like when you were gone, what we went through. Do you even know what happened to you?”

  “I died, killed most likely,” Beck answered. “And still you would go?” Jenny asked surprised. “To save Richard’s family, my family? Yes, I’ll go. I don’t know how I’m getting there yet, but I’ll go.”

  “But you die!” Jenny wailed. Beck got up and hugged her, “Things change, Jenny. I’ll know what I’m walking into this time. That’s bound to make a difference.”

  Potter handed Jenny a tissue. “It’s okay, love,” he said patting her on the shoulder.

  Jenny turned and looked at Potter. “What about us? If the past changes, we won’t have each other.”

  “Yes, we will. We’re soul mates. One way or another, we’ll find each other. You know that. You’re just grasping at straws. I’m with them. I killed one of your brothers. If she can change that, then I’m all for it.”

  “Okay, stop,” Beck said. “I need to know what hunters are; what member of Jenny’s family you killed; when it happened; and for a bonus, throw in the explanation about the vampyre heart.”

  As Beck had been speaking, Jenny had walked to the fridge, gotten a can of Coke out, and handed it to her.

  “Do all of you know about my Coke fetish?” she asked as she opened the can.

  “You bitched constantly about your loss of Coca-Cola. We have some human friends, and I always keep some in the fridge,” Jenny explained.

  “You’re going to want it. This may take awhile.” Potter said as he started his story: “There was a vampyre, centuries ago now, that had found his soul mate. They were together for many years, and although she begged him, he refused to turn her into a vampyre so that they could be together forever. He had not wanted her to be like him, he didn’t want his love to have to sustain herself on the blood of others.

  But the reality of that decision was that she would someday die. Then one day, she fell extremely ill. We know not of what, but before he had time to reconsider her pleas to him, she died. Only after she was gone did he realize what he had done, what he had lost, and he started to become bitter.

  He never recovered from her loss, and over the years, the bitterness turned to self-hatred. Over time, that self-hatred turned into hatred for all of his kind. He believed that it had to be against the will of God for them to exist, that they were a cursed and soulless people to be forced to wander the world forever, only sustaining themselves on the blood of humans, never to know lasting love and happiness. So, he found a way to pull from his own blood what he needed to make an army of hunters.

  He pulled men from the villages; men that hunted his kind already, out of fear. They were right to be fearful. There were no vampyres then that fed on animals. I’m sure that vampyres then were no more evil than they are now. They just didn’t know they could live on anything other than human blood.

  He gathered 412 of us, one for each year of his vampyre life, and he changed us. Not into vampyres, for we do not suffer the thirst. We eat, drink, and sleep as humans do, but we have our creator’s strength, speed, and sense of smell. We smell the scent of humans like he did, but our scent and senses for vampyres is heightened. We can catch their scent from a mile away, and track it for hundreds of miles.

  We knew of the senses we would get, and we agreed to his deal. He told us his story, and for all of these powers, all we had to do was what we wanted to do anyway; kill all vampyres, starting with him. We were living in fear and stupid enough to believe he was telling us the whole truth. What he did not tell us was we would also receive the vampyre longevity.

  That we would watch our loved ones die of old age, but we would live…that our hearts would beat, but would be impenetrable to any weapons. That blood would not run from our open veins. We can die from beheading, just like a vampyre, besides that, the only way for us to die was to kill all of the vampyres. When the last vampyre falls, so shall we. We became very good at hunting. Like I said, we wanted to kill them, but after awhile that became secondary to being allowed to die in peace.

  We killed our way around the world. There were more vampyres than we had ever imagined. Most of the 412 of his army fell, their heads ripped from their bodies. After awhile, I ran into a new breed of vampyres, ones that didn’t smell of human blood. Most of the hunters wouldn’t have cared, but I was curious.

  We had set out to kill murderers, but were these murderers? I was watching a group of animal eating vampyres, a girl in particular. I had not hunted in many years, but I could not stop watching her. I didn’t know what my draw was to her. I was so intent on her, her scent, that I missed the vampyre coming up behind me.

  I didn’t want a fight, not with this family, but I got one anyway. I ran, he chased after and caught me. There was a fight. I tried to explain that I meant no harm, but he would hear none of it. I don’t blame him, not after what we had done to them through the years. We fought, I won. I regretted it, for myself, for him, but mostly, for her.

  I ran from what I had become, not bothering to hide what I had done. I did not know then that I had killed her brother. I only knew it had been one of her clan, and that he had not been her husband. He enjoyed the services of the whorehouses in town.”

  “Bruce,” Richard whispered.

  “No vampyre wife would put up with that. It could have been her father, her brother, possibly a grown son, and I had taken him from her. I knew they would run. They should run. She shouldn’t be around me. And they did run.

  It was fifteen years before I ran across her scent again. I wanted to leave but could not resist my ne
ed to see her again. I followed her scent to a small house and watched it for two days. There were only two male vampyres living in the home with her. Her clan, no; her family, was greatly diminished. I was under no delusion that they had separated. I had watched this family before, and had witnessed the strong bond that they had shared. If the rest of her family were not with her, then I knew they must be dead.

  I felt a deep sadness for the pain that I knew she would have suffered from their loss, and shame in the knowledge that I had caused some of that suffering. One day, I watched as the two men left the house. An hour later, she left as well. My curiosity got the better of me, and I broke into her home to discover whatever I could about her. I found pay slips for the two men with the names Leso and Richard Jaxon, but nothing about her.

  When I sensed them returning, I ran for cover, leaving the house in a shambles. The men returned first. They packed their things and were gone in ten minutes. She returned a while later and fled, as well. I followed her from a distance. She was all alone and I could not allow anything to happen to her. I knew that they had known a hunter had been in their home.

  Their house was torn apart and no scent of another vampyre or human was evident; It could only have been a hunter. I followed her for two months. She didn’t take another home, choosing instead to live in the forest. Then one day, the thing I had feared the most happened. She was found by another hunter.

  She had been greatly weakened by grief and was no match for him. I attacked, and for the first time in my life, I removed another hunter’s head.

  After that she was willing to listen to me. The first time I looked into her eyes, I knew that I loved her and she knew the same. We’ve been together ever since.

  It took me a year to build up the courage to tell her that I had killed a member of her family. She told me that it had been her brother Bruce. She forgave me and I was blessed.

  The first time we made love, I noticed her heart beating. She was breathing as well. It took many years for technology to catch up to our curiosity. When it did, I took the required courses to become a radiologist, and got a job in one of the imagining centers that closed on weekends so that we’d be assured of privacy.