The Key (Sanguinem Emere)

by Taxer, Carmen

  This is all I have needed from him and even with the scratchings behind me, the knowledge of my sister’s death, the fear that I may have lost my best friend forever, knowing that I have possibly become more monstrous than the man I love – Nothing could be more sublime to me than this moment.

  His hands lightly hover around my shoulders and then embrace me, his frame so very much larger than mine divides me from the horror I’ve witnessed. This is where I find him, here in his softness, in his goodness, his rumbling divinity.

  His voice cracks as he speaks into my ear, “My Lamb, I really thought it would be different with you.”

  My blood doesn’t even have a chance to begin to run cold before he lifts me bodily from the ground and pins my arms at my side. The scream erupts in my throat as I know where he is taking me and I kick at him, using my head as a weapon, beating into him, flailing madly, trying desperately to break from his vice of ownership.

  My negation sounds out like a bell in the echoing corridor and I can’t think anymore. Fear chews on my nerves. I bite at him and am greeted with futility. He does not even wince. Or acknowledge my escape attempt or express concern at all, just his continued, mechanical footsteps, thudding ominously in my ears.

  “Do not worry, Eva,” His voice is dead, without feeling and I fall limp and powerless, I am done, “It’ll be brief, and then we’ll be together forever.”

  The door is clicked open though his hands do not move and I spy Levi, twirling a new key between his fingers. He smiles and waves mockingly as the fight in me breaks out anew.

  Dimitri’s hands lay me down on the floor and I scrabble to break free, but the floor slides beneath me, slick and cold. As his fingers release me, newer, colder, pinching ones grasp at my arms and start pulling me back. His feet retreat and I glance up into his face one last time, regal, beautiful, and sorrowful.

  “Dimitri! Please don’t leave me here!” My voice screams in pain as the sound erupts from me, louder than anticipated, terror, numbing my now ruined vocal chords.

  But the door clicks shut and the darkness swallows me up as I feel lips on my neck. The teeth pierce me and I shriek.

  It’s not like his, it burns like cold flame and I can’t stop the mess of screaming, even as the thing’s hand reaches around to cover my mouth, its filthy fingers going into me and touching my tongue. The taste of blood, old and now sweet with decay makes me gag as I wrack the room with screams. There are more growls now and something has my foot.

  Then the door opens again.

  An arm caws in. Something tangles into my hair and pulls me.

  And I’m back in the corridor. Screaming. Can’t stop. Can’t.

  My brother clamps his hand over my mouth as he shunts his back against the door, shutting it.

  I gnaw at his hand, the screams an endless stream, an unstoppable horror driven by awful, gut-jutting terror.

  He pulls me away. God knows how. Why? What the hell is happening? I can still feel them on me.

  I’m bleeding.

  The car door slams and I look up to the house, the scream still shaping my lips.

  Dimitri’s eyes watch me impassively as Alex speeds away.

  TUESDAY 10 November 2009… 19:26

  “Why are we back here?” I hiss as I hide behind Alex. His Lexus is parked in Dimitri’s driveway, right in front of the two cop cruisers that followed us here.

  I still can’t stop shaking.

  It doesn’t feel right. Yesterday I got married. Now I’m terrified.

  “He has to pay, Eva,” Alex takes my hand and practically pulls me to the house where Dimitri is waiting. He was warned we’d be coming, the cops had to pick up a warrant. How they got it I don’t know. I babbled so much, they must think I’m batshit.

  I’m not though. God’s honest.

  I know what’s in that room.

  But when I told them they laughed.

  The only one who cared to listen, really, was Alex. He stuck around after the wedding. Said he had a bad feeling. Heard me screaming.

  Still won’t admit to the dead girls in the room though.

  The dead girls.

  The blood.

  The rot.

  Oh God!

  Bram helped with the police.

  So here they are. But they’re still chuckling.

  Dimitri’s watching me. I can feel his eyes on me as I direct them down the corridor. To the room.

  Something’s wrong, though. Different door.

  I lift my key from my neck. Don’t even wanna touch it. But I can see the problem now. This new door, this imposter door, is electronic? Card slot and everything.

  “No.” I mutter quietly.

  “It’s like I told the judge, Officer,” Dimitri speaks to one of the cops who’s rolling his eyes at me as I fumble with the little thing in my hands, “I don’t even know where she got the key. It certainly doesn’t fit any locks in this house.”

  “You’re sure that this is the right door, Mrs Kron?”

  I cringe at the name and the look in his eye, but I nod, worn. Scared. Of my husband.

  “Of course, we’ll need to take a look inside, if that’s alright with you, Sir?”

  “Certainly.” Dimitri pulls a card from his pocket and slides it through the mechanism. The door clicks open.

  It’s bright inside.

  And cold.

  A walk-in freezer.

  Sides of meat, looming large, greets my eyes and the negation rises in my throat again.

  “No! This was a god-damnded slaughter house!”

  Alex squeezes my hand, trying to make me quiet. “No,” I pull away from him and implore the cop who is now giving me the crazy-bitch expression, “He killed them! Don’t you fucking get it? He would have done the same to me!”

  “Eva…” Dimitri starts walking towards me and I scream a short sharp denial which stops him in his tracks, “I could never hurt you. Never.”

  Oh God, I wish I could believe him. I truly do.

  He turns to Alex who passes glances between him and I. Dumbfounded. “Alexander, thanks for bringing her back,” Dimitri rubs his nose tiredly. A performance worthy of an Oscar, “I’ve no idea what brought this on, but thank you for bringing her here. I’ll take over, if you don’t mind.”

  Alex’s releases my hand.

  Nudges me towards Dimitri.

  And it starts. The scream. I scream as if my voice is in excess, like I’ll stop breathing if I stop screaming.

  I won’t be left here.

  FRIDAY 01 January 2010… 20:45

  “I went to the Garden of Love,

  And saw what I never had seen;

  A Chapel was built in the midst,

  Where I used to play on the green.

  And the gates of this Chapel were shut,

  And 'Thou shalt not' writ over the door;

  So I turned to the Garden of Love

  That so many sweet flowers bore.

  And I saw it was filled with graves,

  And tombstones where flowers should be;

  And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,

  And binding with briars my joys and desires.”

  William Blake, The Garden of Love

  Mercy House

  Her eyes glisten at me from the mass of bodies, an arm here, a breast lightly covered with blood-smeared blonde hair there… Their legs bent at odd angles, chunks of flesh missing where teeth tore into tender skin.

  Then an eye flickers open as one of the things starts moving. Some sound escapes me, some exhalation of my terror and another starts to move. Their eyes focus in on me and all I can do is stare into the face of my baby sister, dead and lifeless.

  I failed her.

  The mass of death starts to quiver as these things that were dead and decimated only a few seconds ago sit up to stare at me with vital, horrific intelligence.

  “Eva, stay with me.”

  “Sir, visiting hours are almost over.”

  “I know, Goddammit!”<
br />
  “I want to speak with Dr Shane!”

  “Please stay calm, Sir, we’re only trying to help.”

  “Time for your meds, Lovey.”

  “I know, I’m sorry… It’s just… She’s my only sister.”

  “I’m not crazy, you know.”

  “I understand, Sir. We’re doing all we can for her, you realise.”

  “Lilah, you have to take your pills.”

  “But what about the physical signs?”

  “I don’t want to, fuck off!”

  “We’re treating the anaemia as best we can, Mr Wright.”

  Alex. I focus my eyes on him and look around the asylum. God, it’s like some nightmare hell dimension. All pasty green walls and shiny, ammonia drenched surfaces. I can smell the ‘cleanliness’ of it like peroxide in my nostrils. And there’s my brother giving the same concerned expression I remember from his last three visits.

  I don’t think I’ve been in here too long, but I don’t really remember.

  Dimitri’s face. I remember that.

  “Dimitri.” My voice hurts in my throat and Alex winces. That could be his sympathy and concern or his distaste for the man I love. Either way it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t understand. He can’t.

  And he won’t rescue me from this place either.

  “He’s gone, Sweety,” Alex tries to coddle me, but I know he doesn’t really get it. He won’t take me from here and she’ll just come back again.

  “Mr Wright, please, Eva needs to take her medication before lights out.”

  Alex nods and my eyes narrow.

  Lights out?

  “Alex, please get me away from here. Please!”

  “Now now, Mrs Kron.” The orderly pulls at my hands which flutter out to my big brother, trying to make him understand. Idiots! Don’t they get it? I can be here at lights out, she’ll just come back! Again and again.

  “Let me go, please!” I fight harder and the orderly’s hands are joined by another pair, a guy I call ‘serious face’ who gives me a disapproving head shake and speaks to me in that condescending way that makes me wish I could kick his nuts so hard in an upward motion he’d be pulling his own pubes out of his teeth, “Acting up again, Eva?”

  Alex is ushered from the social hall and I scream after him. Why can’t he just try and understand!

  My jailors lift me from the arm chair and carry me to my room. Cell is more like it. More green, more bleached bedding and some straps just to be sure. This place is so stark.

  I turn to the one who’s not ‘serious face’ and try to reason with him. “Please, please just put someone in the room with me. You’ll see I’m not making this up!”

  “Oh, I don’t think you’re making it up, Eva.” Again that patronising tone that makes me ache to hurt someone.

  “Please! I’m begging you. She’s going to come back, she always does!”

  Good cop and bad cop pass a grim look between each other as the one holds me still while the other fastens the straps. Then bad cop pulls out a syringe and I know it’s all over.

  The sting is brief. I’ve had worse. Like the feeling of weightlessness that I know will only make it uglier when she comes for me. I can’t stop the wave of terror when I can’t move.

  Then fuzz instils itself over my vision and my hearing, and my skin as my body starts to grow slightly cold.

  “Sleep tight, Mrs Kron,” Good cop mumbles as the two of them exit and click my door shut. It doesn’t even do for me to show them the marks. When I do they lock me up for bad behaviour. For self-inflicted injury.

  Not a moment later I hear the call for lights out and the room goes dark.

  Now all I can do is wait.

  About twenty minutes pass and I try not to whimper as the door clicks open again. It won’t do to scream, screams rattle this place every night. And every day. And no one cares.

  The bed bows slightly as weight is put on it and a fearful tear trickles down my face.

  Her face comes into view and I can see she’s made an effort this time. Rudimentary, as it’s all these things are capable of. But her hair has been combed out and her face isn’t as dirty.

  I wonder, did she do it to please me? Or did he do it for her?

  Even in my frozen terror, I can picture him crooning to her, calming her as he methodically applies her liner, knowing where she’s going. Knowing what she’ll do.

  She presses her cold lips to mine and the usual sickening smell of old blood and viscera is masked now by the sweet perfume of soap. Her fingers stroke mildly at my hair, her definition of foreplay, but her movements are rough and mechanical and painful when she isn’t trying to actively be gentle.

  Tonight her hands tug burningly at my hair and I start to cry in earnest. If she’s this unbalanced it means she’s hungry.

  It’ll hurt.

  Her cold, little body slides between the sheets as she presses her lips to my neck and kisses it tenderly, starving.

  “There there,” She coos in the way she always does, “I’ll take care of you.”

  Her little teeth dig into my throat and I let myself get swept away in the pain. It’s never like it was with him; the gentle caresses, the bite so soft I barely recognised it for what it was.

  But the more she feeds, the less scared I become. It happens every night, and still every morning I awake with that same terror of the cycle repeating itself. As cycles do.

  When she’s with me, taking from me, it all seems right. I’m with him – a part of him – forever. Just as he said we would be.

  She retracts from me and her dagger-ish teeth scrape at the wound, burning and itching in one yelp from my throat. Brokenly, her words strained and forced through her throat like she’s forgotten how to speak, she recites the same thing she tells me every night as she strokes my hair and laps her tongue at the marks on my neck.

  “So much of it. But so little left.” Her smile is white in the dark and I shudder at the coldness of her skin, “Soon it will be gone. And you will be like us.”

  A desolate light, sepia and shadowed, but illuminating the end nonetheless. It’s a terrible thing to imagine, being like her. But then there’s the hope of seeing my Dimitri in that universe. And a stab of light filters through the ugly sickness laid out before me.

  I stroke Cecily’s hair and close my eyes to drift away into sleep, dreaming of the future.

  Dreaming of being with my Dimitri again.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Carmen has delved into teaching, lecturing, editing and writing copy, but her passion is, and has been, Vampire Fiction, ever since her first encounter with the genre when she was only ten years old. Vampires fill a gap in literature which allows for the exploration of taboo in a safe, comfortable environment.

  She has an Honours in Translation and Professional Writing, with majors in English and Visual Communication.

  Carmen lives in Pretoria, South Africa with her fiancé, Richard T. Wheeler.