by Lee McGeorge
He put on his overcoat and practiced withdrawing the knives many times. Perfect. In the real world they were for defence only, but the book forced him to imagine using them for attack.
...and every time he imagined.
...a naked man appeared in the corner of the room.
His skin white and smooth and as impermeable as marble, his muscles defined, his eyes glowing with the reflection of deep ruby. He wasn’t really in the room, physically taking up space. It was a quirk of the illness that Paul had consistently imagined this figure and called him a vampire. It had begun whilst story writing. Paul’s imagination was potent at the best of times and at his best he could project his imagination onto his surroundings. He’d imagined this creature and given it all the attributes of a stealthy, ferocious killer. Once he became sick, he was projecting it everywhere whether he wanted to or not. In the worst instance he’d seen it come into the apartment in Noua and he’d cut his own neck trying to fight against it. He’d tried to physically fight a figment of his own imagination and almost cut his own throat.
It was only a few days ago.
It felt like months.
The vampire would watch his attack practice.
He scanned the practice drill checklist, reminding himself of the questions he needed to ask himself at the end. What were his thoughts? What was his attitude? Could he visualise a real opponent? The questions went down to the most important. Did he kill the opponent?
Visualise an opponent.
Nisha... Kill the bitch.
It took only an instant to grab both knives and shoot himself into the dummy target. Right hand to the neck, left to the ribs, right hand out and stabbing back into the flank. Stab, cut, slice, Bitch. Fucking. Die. You. Cunt. Stab to the throat. Remember the training. Stab to the stomach. Go for the organs on the left side of the body. Stab deeper and aim for Nisha’s liver. Vary the attack angles. Stab her in her fucking cunt face.
He backed off, turned one hundred and eighty degrees and said to himself, “Turn and run. Leave the scene quickly.” He jogged a few paces on the spot to simulate running away.
The vampire was watching him.
He looked at the practice drill checklist. Had he raised his adrenalin level through mental conditioning? He was unsure, he didn’t feel any different. What was his power level? He looked at the stabbed mattress and realised his power was formidable. How long did he last? When did the blows start to slow down? How had he closed the distance between himself and Nisha? How balanced was he? Were there problems with the grip?
Had he killed his opponent?
There was a paragraph after the checklist. It read, ‘Even though the dummy did not hit back, this is an effective basic drill. Work on the mistakes you made or the areas that need improvement.’
“I didn’t kill you enough, Nisha,” he said as he clipped the knives back into the yoke. “And how do I raise my adrenalin level?”
He thought about her for a moment. He recalled the images of drunken sex in vivid technicolour detail. She was wearing a light blue dress splashed in fake blood. She wobbled as she bent forward to slide her panties down. She drunkenly rolled back on the bed and lifted her wide open knees to her chest to display her vagina. Her panties, white fine lace were hanging from her ankle. He had been struggling to put the condom on in the dark. He realised he’d been trying to roll it on inside out. She was impatient.
How could this be rape?
She grabbed him and pulled him onto her, she had wrapped her legs around him.
“I should really fucking kill you.” Paul said. “You’re a fucking liar.”
Had he raised his adrenal level?
He snapped back to the practice dummy, knives in his fists, swinging wildly, stabbing deep, slicing back and forth in a frenzy, springs popping through the fabric, cutting it into ribbons, visualising Nisha. Killing her, blood splashing against the walls, a knife stabbed in an uppercut, under her jaw and through her tongue, slices across her stomach, a deep stab to the neck. Kill her. Fucking kill her. He saw her falling and slashed in upwards cuts to keep her standing. Mattress springs popped through her clothing looking like bone and guts. “AAAARRGHHH! YOU CUNT!” Paul screamed as he jammed the right hand knife into the side of her head with all of his force, knocking the heavy practice dummy down like it was made of paper.
Stop... Turn around. Jog on the spot. “Turn and run,” he said breathlessly. “Leave the scene quickly.”
He stopped. Clipped his knives back into the yoke. Tried to rest his mind, but it refused to quiet. He could only see Nisha. She was on the wall. She was on the carpet. She was the practice dummy. “Leave me alone, Nisha.” He felt his hands tremble and his spine go weak. This was happening frequently now. His vision blurred as his eyes began shuddering, shaking from left to right so quickly they ached with the strain.
Ildico, think of Ildico.
He knelt heavily on one knee and pictured her stretched out on the bed. She lay beside him, naked, her mouth in a half-smile, her hand reaching towards him. He visualised himself beside her, sliding over, stroking his fingertips across her leg. He was climbing on top of her, feeling her legs open, his skin against her skin. Lovely Ildico, lovely, lovely Ildico.
A memory of Nisha, the phone call. “You fucking raped me you fucking pig rapist scum!”
He jumped up and dived at the practice dummy withdrawing the knives in mid-air. Both blades jammed in from the sides exactly where her neck would have been. If she were really here, the blow would have decapitated her.
Get control...
Calm...
Control...
Ildico... Think of Ildico. Again he pictured her laying in bed, her hand sleepily reaching out towards him. He stepped back and knelt down, squeezing his eyes together. He focussed on his breathing, pulling it back, getting it controlled. He saw Ildico again and again, reaching out her hand, a soft half-smile, offering gentle warmth and encouragement.
He opened his eyes.
The vampire was watching over him. Its eyes caught the light, a soft ruby red glow, but this time it showed an emotion. It was smiling, ever so slightly, it was grinning at him. It was the first time it had ever shown an emotion.
“And why are you smiling?” The vampire didn’t respond. “Why? Why are you even here?”
He suddenly wanted to punch it, to hit it as hard as he could. It wasn’t there, he knew it wasn’t really there. If he punched it he’d hit the wall. He’d tried that in Romania and almost cut his own throat.
He closed his eyes and concentrated on bringing down his aggression. He was winning. He was bringing it down, controlling it.
He opened his eyes.
The room felt darker. Calmer.
The vampire was still standing in the corner but had disappeared into the shadows. To the casual glance it was all but unseen but Paul could see those glassy red eyes reflecting back at him.
“What do I have to do to make you go away?” he asked.
The vampire tilted its head towards him.
“Kill Nisha,” it said.
The name hit Paul like an atom bomb and he unloaded with the strength of forty men. It took only three minutes for him to completely destroy the attack dummy.
----- X -----
Noica offered to drive Ildico home. She looked tired and exhausted by the situation. The strain of interrogation she’d shown inside the station had been replaced by emotional fatigue. He could see that her guard was lowered.
“You must be tired after that,” he began once on the road. “I really felt for you in there. It was stressful. Exhausting. I really felt for you.”
Ildico nodded. “Thanks,” she whispered.
“I was, if you don’t mind me saying, a little surprised you didn’t want to file charges against Paul for what he did. Is there any special reason for that?”
Ildico shrugged. “I don’t want to think about it. I want it to go away.”
“That’s understandable. This is a terrible ugly bu
siness. As far as you’re concerned it’s probably all finished now, so I hope you can find some way to step away from it. If I can offer some advice, I would recommend you spend some time focussing on your own wellbeing. But if you change your mind though, about charges, you can always do it in the future.” Noica suspected that she had emotionally forgiven McGovern. Something in her manner was resigned and accepting. She just wanted to forget about it.
“Can I ask how Paul behaved before he visited the grave?”
“Before he went to the grave...” Ildico mused over the question for a second. “He was a nice guy. He was a writer and he was serious about that. Very serious.”
“Serious how?”
She shrugged. “Most of the men I know in Noua are full of talk. They talk about things they will do and they try to make themselves look cool. Big plans and no action. They talk a good game, but it’s only talk for the girls. Do you know what I mean? Like a preening bird, displaying feathers to attract a mate.”
“I understand.” Noica replied.
“With Paul, I could see from the first moment that he wasn’t like that. There was no preening or posturing. He had come to Romania to write a book and he was deadly serious about it. He was going to write a book, and do it right and make it well.”
“So he wasn’t ‘preening’ with you?”
She smiled a little then dabbed at her eyes as though a tear was forming. “When I first met him I thought he might be gay.”
“What made you think that?”
“He was ignoring me. I suppose I was flirting with him and he was too preoccupied to notice. This is what makes him different. All the men I’ve ever known are macho. They push themselves onto women, trying to be impressive. Paul was, I don’t know how to say it, he was ignoring me because his work was more important. At first I thought he didn’t like girls, but later I realised his work was his main focus. He has... had a... like he was so focussed on one thing that he ignored what was happening around him.”
“A one track mind.” Noica quipped.
“Exactly. I would visit him and talk with him, but his mind was on the book. All the time. It was like it never switched off. There was always part of him that was working on his project.”
“What did you think of him for doing this, for having a one track mind?”
“What did I think? ...I thought he was going to be very successful. He was doing something real and he was serious about it.”
Noica smiled and nodded. “It’s a very attractive quality to see in someone. Do you agree?”
Ildico nodded.
Noica made a small smile. “You know when I was a young boy my father would always tell me, ‘Son, you’ll always lose money chasing women, but you’ll never lose women chasing money.’ It sounds like Paul had been doing just that. I hope you don’t mind me saying. The way you describe it sounds like he was working hard to create a better future for himself and you saw that, rightly, as a very attractive quality. Is that the right way to understand it?”
Ildico nodded and hummed affirmatively.
“Do you know how he discovered the grave? Do you know which one it was?”
“I don’t know which one. I took him to visit a friend of mine who has been collecting stories about strigoi for years. When we talked about graves Paul became excited because he said he had already found one in the forest close to his home. He found the grave before he knew what it was.”
“And did you tell him what it was?”
“Of course. We both told him it was dangerous and that he shouldn’t go there. Paul didn’t see... he thought... he thought Romanians were uneducated and that there couldn’t be a dark spirit in the forest to infect him.” She thought for a second then asked, “Are there strigoi, Doctor Noica. Really? I used to think it was true without question. Paul made me think about it some more.”
“Strigoi is just a legend.”
“That is what Paul said. He said if people become sick it is from something there, like a bacteria or virus or something that has infected them.”
Noica nodded solemnly. “That’s an astute observation for him to make. I think Paul may be right about that.”
They were both silent for a minute. The traffic was moving slowly in a long chain along Calea Bucharest, one of the main roads through Brasov. Far up ahead it looked like one of the electric trolley busses had broken down and the traffic was trying to filter past. The windscreen wipers were the only sound, sweeping falling snow from the window.
“What will happen to Paul?” Ildico asked to break the silence.
Noica shrugged. “Hopefully the police can find him. He may need some specialist medical treatment and I hope that we can find him before anything bad happens to him or anyone else.”
“What will happen to him because of Nealla and Raul?”
“I don’t know. That’s a police matter. If he’s found I expect they will want him to stand trial but that can only happen if he’s well enough.”
“They deserved it,” she said as a whisper.
Noica was about to interject but thought better of it.
“Is Paul a vampire, Doctor Noica?”
“There are no real vampires. There are no creatures of the night flying around and drinking blood. They’re just stories.”
“Paul believes he is a vampire.”
Noica screwed his face a little. “Paul may have an illness that will make him confused and violent. It’s an illness.”
“Can he be cured?”
“I don’t know, Ildico. I hope so. I’ve been working with men sick like this for a lot of years now. None have been cured so far, but Paul seems to be different. The other men I treat with this illness aren’t just dangerous, they have completely lost their minds and there is no way back for them. But Paul, he seems to have kept his sanity intact, at least so far. I just hope we can find him and help him before he becomes like the others.”
“I hope so too. He isn’t a bad person. Paul is a good man, I promise you, Doctor Noica. He’s good.”
----- X -----
It was dark now. The attack dummy had been cut to ribbons. Springs poked through slices in the mattress, feathers clung to the carpet, shreds of fabric hung loose from the mass of bedding used to simulate Nisha Khumari.
Did you kill the target?
He wasn’t really going to kill Nisha. That’s what his inner monologue continually said when he wasn’t reminiscing and seeing their one night together.
He could taste her alcohol breath as she kissed him. He could feel her hand guiding his into her underwear. He could feel his hips against hers as they were making love. Almost. It was pathetic. She stopped him to roll off the bed to the floor, kneeled there on all fours for a second, then vomited.
“You raped me you fucking pig rapist scum!”
The practice had calmed his mind. The simulation had allowed him to vent the aggression. He was quieter now. More capable of rational thought.
He thought they were going to have a relationship. He wanted to love her.
He wasn’t really going to kill her.
He kept telling himself that.
He’d killed two men in Romania, but that was an act of instant aggression. There was no thought involved. He wouldn’t really plan on killing Nisha premeditated.
“I’m not going to kill you, Nisha,” he said.
He said it a few times. Even when he withdrew the knives quickly and slammed one of them into what was left of the attack dummy. “I’m not going to kill you, Nisha.”
When he pulled the blade out he swung the opposite blade to where he envisioned her head to be and in a flash of imagination he saw the knife slam into her skull through her ear. “I’m not going to kill you, Nisha,” he said. “I’m not going to kill you.”
He even said it as the dummy collapsed to the floor. He knelt across it, imagining her between his thighs and stabbed the blades into the carpet where her face should be.
“I’m not going to kill you, Nisha,” he s
aid as the blades peeled a layer of blanket as though it was the skin of her face. “I’m not going to kill you.”
The imagined girl between his legs looked at him, striking white eyes in a mask of blood that poured from her mouth and nose.
“I’m not going to kill you, Nisha,” he said leaning in close to whisper it. “I’m going to do something to you far worse than killing.”
There was a thump.
He turned his head to the ceiling, an imperceptible sound from above that made him hold his breath to listen.
Outside in the street a car passed, it’s engine thrumming to the distance. Paul clipped his knives back into the yoke sheaths but remained looking up to the ceiling.
Thump.
Upstairs. There was somebody in the building. He knew the sound. The doors of the bedsits all had spring loaded hinges. They were fire-doors that closed under their own weight. Somebody was up there, opening the doors, moving between rooms.
Paul fished in his backpack to find the flashlight that had helped him against the frequent power outages in Romania. He checked it, turned it off and also turned off the table lamp to throw him into darkness. From upstairs a floorboard creaked. Footsteps.
Paul moved out to the staircase and began creeping up in darkness. He didn’t turn on the flashlight. The rooms on the higher floors didn’t have their windows boarded and would pick up a little of the evening ambient light from street lights on the front, but the staircase was...
Thump.
Paul halted in silence and recalled something important. There was a time in Romania where he was sure he heard something inside his apartment in the night. He’d investigated and found the vampire. It was a dream, a stupid hallucination. That’s what it was then, that’s all it was now. He was paranoid, jittery, delusional.