Unmade: A Neo-Nihilist Vampire Tale

by Vocabulariast, The

  The soldier spouted tears as the next burst of fire from his assault rifle ripped through the monster’s face and sent him down to the bottom of the blood covered pool, and yet, his mind still functioned. The pain of his destroyed body infused every single one of his thoughts, but there was, to his frustrated surprise, still thought. Even now he could feel the gentle tugging of the flesh on his scalp as it tried to mend itself together. He faded into the light as his nightmare finally ended.

  Chapter 24: Ratula

  His body had flown a good twenty feet into a bed of ivy filled with vermin. Mice and rats crawled over his hands and his unconscious face, tickling his nose with their matted fur and taking fresh nibbles from the already open wound on his scalp. It was the roar of a passing semi-truck and the tiny flare of nibble pain that finally awoke him from his beautiful death dream.

  He struggled to move in the approaching dawn. His arms jerked like the automatons you would find in a cheap sideshow funhouse. His groans rang off the high concrete block walls that surrounded the freeway; they were occasionally drowned out by a semi-truck that was trying to find its way through the city’s arteries. There was no strength left in his body and he was content to just lay there and let the rats nibble his body away into nothingness.

  His groans continued despite his resolution to let his vermin friends dispose of his still living remains. Eventually, he attracted the attention of somebody. He didn’t see the person as he approached, his footsteps crushing the dried highway ivy with each step. As the footsteps came closer, he heard a click and then a faint glow of light reached his functioning eyeballs through his tightly pursed eyelids.

  “Well holy shit! If it ain’t my good friend Ratula,” a familiar voice intoned in a painfully cheery greeting. “Couldn’t get enough of them rats, huh? Or maybe, from the looks of it, they came looking for you.”

  The Old Solider stepped gingerly through the remaining stretch of ivy that separated the two. “I didn’t think I’d see you again so soon.” The old man stooped and lifted the bloody wound from the ground shouldering most of his weight.

  He fought the veteran, making it as difficult as possible for him to remove him from his attempted death-by-rat suicide. He didn’t make much progress and he soon blacked out from the effort. The last thing he remembered was a lone rat, dangling with a death grip from the peeled back skin of his scalp. He appreciated the effort.

  Chapter 25: You Think You're a God, Boy?

  He opened his eyes slowly, afraid to see what was on the other side of his eyelids. The glare of daylight assaulted his eyes from the edge of his vision. Slowly his eyes adjusted and he realized that he was resting underneath the shade of the overpass that was supposed to have been his salvation. Pigeons fluttered back and forth from one support to another dropping their feces frequently. Their coos were barely audible above the roar of midday traffic from the highway.

  He heard scrabbling next to him, the faint rustle of fingertips through fabric and paper. He turned his head slightly, feeling the ache of his swollen neck and the swoosh of blood through his battered brain. The old veteran sat with his legs crossed on the incline of the concrete that supported the overpass. He wondered how the veteran didn’t simply slide into the traffic like a child on a sled who slides down a hill on a snow day. The old veteran’s fingers moved lithely, pinching tobacco from a little yellow drum and filling up the rolling paper he held cradled between his nicotine stained fingers. He moved the paper back and forth, rolling the tobacco into a complex stick of cancer-dealing goodness. With a final lick and kiss, he finished rolling the cigarette and placed it in the pocket of his old military jacket. It looked like the kind that Robert DeNiro had worn in Taxi Driver.

  He tried to imagine the old veteran’s grizzled face wearing a mohawk and for a second, he almost laughed. “Hey, old man. Say, ‘You talkin’ to me?’”

  The old veteran ignored him and kept rolling the cigarette he was working on. When he finished he placed it in his jacket pocket and spoke. “You ought to keep it down, you know. The man that makes jokes is the man that lives the longest. You ever heard that? From the shape you’re in, you don’t much look like you want to be that man.”

  He leaned his head back and listened as the old soldier’s fingers rifled through his can of C grade tobacco, finding the perfect pinch to place in the next paper.

  “Well, I took the liberty of fixing you up, just in case you change your mind. I mean you can always kill yourself later, but it’s a hell of a lot harder to come back from the dead. Or so I’ve heard. Never been dead m’self. Not sure that I ever want to be. As you can see, I got a pretty sweet spread goin’ on here. It’s like I got my own piece of river front property. I got the sound of the river without all the bother of fish, sunlight, and clean air. Who could ask for anything more?”

  The old man finished rolling his cigarette and placed it in his jacket pocket. Industriously he scrabbled in his tobacco can for another perfect pinch. “So what’s it going to be boy? You got a death wish or do you want to live? Are you a Charles Bronson or a Ponce De Leon?”

  “I’m not sure.” He thought about it for a little bit and decided to risk his sanity on the old veteran.

  “You’re not sure? Then you got a death wish for sure. People that want to live know it; everyone else is just foolin’ themselves.”

  “No, you’re not understanding me yet. I want death. Shit, you already know that. People don’t just accidentally fall over fences and onto highways. I’m just not sure that I can actually die.”

  The old veteran stopped rolling his smokes and looked over at him, curiosity and madness dancing in his eyes. “You think you’re a god, boy? You looked pretty close to dead when I found you. I ain’t never seen the body of a god before, but I’m pretty sure a god body wouldn’t look as pitiful as you did, layin’ there bleedin, all chewed up by rats. Nope, you were at the doorstep. All you had to do was reach out and turn the knob.”

  He turned his head, neurons firing in the negative, and looked at the face of the old soldier. The skin around his eyes was saggy, giving him a squint-eyed look, like Clint Eastwood in the desert. His cheeks were hollow on his “hadn’t shaved in a few days” face. His unmarked skullcap clung to his head like a second skull made of black knit wool.

  “Maybe you don’t get it. I fell twenty five feet from that bridge, headfirst onto the top of a car moving at 50 miles an hour, and I’m still here. I’m a little sore, but I should be dead. My neck should have snapped in half, but there’s nothing except for some bruises and some cuts and one hell of a headache.”

  The old veteran looked at him, paused a moment and then dismissively said, “Some people are just lucky, that’s all.”

  He laughed at the old veteran’s nonchalance, even though it pained him to do so, and with each exhaled laugh he felt as if his brains were going to burst out the front of his skull. “Lucky?! Mister, if there’s one thing I ain’t, it’s lucky. I’ve had my ass kicked all around this town and I haven’t been around here for more than a week. I’m always fucking starving, I can’t eat normal food without throwing up, and the only thing that I can seem to keep down is blood. I tried killing myself, and that didn’t even go right. Does that sound like a lucky man to you?”

  The old veteran looked at him quizzically. “When did all this ‘bad luck’ start?”

  He leaned back and rested his head on the hard slab of the highway overpass support and tried to remember the past. His life of the last few days had blended together; the days had all disappeared and all that was left was night in his mind. Then it came to him… those green-flecked eyes, that pale skin, the prick of teeth into his neck flesh. “It all happened about a week ago. I met this girl at the bar. Well, I didn’t actually meet her. She stopped some meathead from beating me to death. I took her back to my place and we had a good time, and after that is when all this garbage started to happen.”

  The old veteran lit up one of his pre-rolled cigarettes and then decided t
o cut through all the bullshit. “When you say good time, what the hell do you mean? Did she play dominoes with you? Did she give you a rimjob? Did you eat boogers together? What the hell does ‘good time’ mean, boy?”

  “Well, w-we made love…” he was interrupted by the old man’s coughing laughter as smoke blew out his nose and mouth.

  “Love,” he laughed some more even stopping to slap his knee. “Just cuz you stick your dick in a watermelon, that don’t make it love.” He laughed some more and took another drag off of his cigarette and spoke as he exhaled, “Why don’t you start speakin’ straight, boy. I can’t help you if you’re not honest with me. Hell, I’m not even sure I can help you if you are honest with me.”

  “Fine. I took her home. I fucked her; actually, it’s more like she fucked me. I was pretty busted up. Then she bit me on the neck and I passed out.”

  The old man took off his skullcap and ran his fingers through his medium length silver hair. “She bit you, huh? And now all you can eat is blood? And a swan dive off of a highway overpass onto the top of a car just leaves you a little bruised and bloody. Ain’t you never seen any movies? You’re a goddamn vampire.” The old soldier started laughing again, then his face became serious once more, “You’re not gonna eat me, are ya?” He burst into another fit of laughter.

  “You’re the last person I’d eat, you dirty old bastard. You’d probably taste like leather.”

  “That’s no reason to be rude.”

  “I thought you were trying to help me.”

  The old veteran became serious once again, his mood changing quicksilver fast. “I am trying to help you. Look at me. I’m an old bum, an old soldier with no more fight in me. If I didn’t have my sense of humor, I wouldn’t have shit. Just cuz I’m laughing, doesn’t mean I’m not serious. Alright?”

  “Fine. Just keep the guffaws to a minimum. You’re like one of those little girls that’s always giggling with her friends in the school cafeteria.”

  “There you go! There’s your sense of humor. You’re kind of a dick about it, but you’re getting the picture. So let’s see, where were we? Oh, yeah… you are a vampire.”

  He thought about the old man’s statement and all the things that had happened to him, and all of the things that he had been feeling… and it all sort of made sense. “OK, I’m a vampire.” He felt like he had entered the Twilight Zone. He kept waiting to see Rod Serling standing off to the side giving some pithy synopsis of tonight’s episode about an average man who finds himself in extraordinary circumstances.

  “OK, so are you a good vampire or a bad vampire?”

  “Can there be a good vampire?”

  “I don’t know; you tell me.”

  “I guess I’m good. The only person I’ve tried to kill is myself.”

  “Alright, a good vampire. I’d hate to have to try and kill you. Cuz if you were bad, that’s exactly what I’d do. Now what do you want to do Mr. Vampire?”

  His head ached and he felt like he was still in the middle of a bad nightmare. He wasn’t too excited about being a vampire and his motivations hadn’t changed with his grudging acceptance of the circumstances. “I want to die.”

  “Well we’ve already seen how that’s worked out. What’s number two on the list?

  He thought a little more, and there it was in the back of his brain, a reason, a motivation.

  “If I can’t die, then someone is going to have to.

  Chapter 26: Pacts Were Made

  The day passed underneath the bridge. He laid on his back hatching his devious plans with the old crazy soldier. He covered his eyes with his arm, avoiding the burning light at the edge of the overpass. It felt good to accept the insanity that he had been swept up in. It felt good to have a purpose and it felt good to have someone to talk to.

  The sun made its arc through the sky, trying to find a way to get at the young vampire underneath the freeway overpass. The old man rolled his cigarettes and their plan came together. Pacts were made as night came. The old veteran picked him up and planted the young vampire on his shoulder. His hand rolled cigarette smoke billowed over him covering him in its stink like a secret cape that hid his new nature. He plodded along with the young vampire attempting to ease the burden, clumsily putting one foot in front of the other. His body seemed to be malfunctioning, things didn’t work as easily as they used to, and it required an extreme amount of effort to travel the six blocks to his apartment, a lifetime away from the overpass.

  When they found their way inside his apartment he was exhausted. The old veteran promised to be back tomorrow night with some goodies and left him on his bed. He closed his eyes and slept for the rest of night and the rest of the next day. He awoke to the jingling of keys in the doorknob and the slow creak of the door. His eyes opened as the last orange of sunset disappeared over the horizon and the rustle of goodies in bags were plopped on the end of his bed. It had begun.

  Chapter 27: Bag O' Rats

  The old soldier tottered in, loaded with paper bags. Some wood sat out on the stairwell landing. He had no idea what that was for, but he had an idea. One of the bags looked suspiciously wiggly. He didn’t like to think what was in the bag or what would happen to the contents of the aforementioned bag.

  “Greetings, Ratula. How was your nap?”

  “Good, I slept like a baby. No dreams, nothing except darkness.”

  “Sounds like the type of sleep that a man has after getting a monkey off of his back. Good for you. I got the stuff that we need, plus a few extra things.”

  The old soldier started emptying the contents of his bags, upending them and dumping them out on the bed. There were books about vampires, a shitload of nails and a bottle of whiskey. The old veteran grabbed the fifth of whiskey, a bargain brand called Broker’s that came in a plastic bottle. “That one’s for me. I got yours right here.” He held up the wiggly bag of something and tossed it in his direction. He peeked inside and saw exactly what he thought he’d see: four medium-sized rats fighting to get out of the paper bag. He was surprised that they hadn’t chewed their way out, but that’s what happened when you crammed too many creatures in a small space… they spent all of their time fighting each other instead of working together to get out.

  “Now I know that rats aren’t no gourmet meal, but they’re a lot easier to get up here than an unconscious person. You need your strength, so don’t complain.” He opened his bottle of whiskey and took a swig that made him gag just looking at it. “Go eat. We got a lot of work to do and the nights are short at this time of year.”

  He grabbed his bag o’ rats and walked into the kitchen, where he found a nice serrated steak knife that only had a little rust on its edge. He then began to wash the rats, one by one in the sink. After he had washed all of the rats off, he picked up the plumpest one; it must have weighed two pounds, and cut its throat with the knife. He held it upside down so that the blood would drip into his mouth aided by the still beating heart of the rat and gravity. It was all a lot neater and nicer than his last attempt had been. The taste was the same however; old gutter refuse and shit flavor. It still invigorated him.

  He looked over at the old veteran sitting on the end of his bed, reading a book about vampires and pausing every now and then to steal a draught from his bottle. He wondered what he would taste like. Hell, he’d probably taste like old cigarettes and whiskey. Who knows, maybe there would be even more flavors inside the old man than he thought. He had been to faraway, exotic places. There could yet be some surprises in the old man. He banished the line of thinking from his thoughts as he opened up another bottle of rat and drained its lifeblood down.

  “So what do you say there, chief? What’s the plan?”

  “Well, besides you suckin’ down that rat brew, the first order of business is to build your vampire ass a coffin.” He took another swig from his bottle and smacked his lips. “You any good at carpentering?”

  “Carpentering? Is that even a word?”

  “I don’t know. Do I
look like a dictionary to you?”

  “No… you look like an old bum who is getting drunk and reading a book about vampires on the end of my bed.”

  “Ha ha ha… well at least we know your eyes are working properly,” he took another swig from his bottle and produced one of his handmade beauties from his jacket pocket. He lit it and continued reading the vampiric tome.

  “Why do I need a coffin? I’ve been sleeping in this room since I was bit and I haven’t been burnt up yet?”

  The old soldier took another drag from his ever-present cigarette and looked him in the eyes. “You don’t know what’s going to happen. What if one day, you’re sleeping and all of the sudden you start sleepwalking. You’re in a dream and you want to look out the window so you walk over to the window and lift the shade. Next thing you know, no more you. It could happen. I’ve seen people do some weird shit in their sleep. Did I ever tell you the story of my friend that could channel the devil in his sleep? He was this old bum that would go to sleep and…”

  “No, please, not another story.”

  “I suppose you’re right. We do have some work to do.”

  “I still don’t see why I need a coffin. I’ve never sleepwalked in my life, and I don’t see how being a vampire would change that.”

  “Fine, fine, you don’t sleepwalk, but it says here in this book… let me find the page.” The old soldier riffled through the pages of the red-bound book that had the title McGinley’s Vampiric Encyclopedia emblazoned in gold letters across the front cover. He finally found the page and said, “Ah, here it is. ‘A vampire must rest in a receptacle for the dead, or coffin, every night in order to obtain the true potential of their vampiric powers. If a vampire does not rest in a corpse receptacle, then their powers shall diminish to that of the weakest humans.’”