The Man of my Dreams

by Quintal, Gladys

  She screamed again and frantically struggled to free herself, knowing that it was hopeless. The creature tilted his head sideways and looked at her as if with recognition. He forgot his meal and stood up and started to walk towards her. Cassie screamed and tried again to struggle free but couldn’t get out of her shackles.

  “No, please don’t kill me!" she screamed. "You said you loved me, remember?”

  It stopped and looked at her as if unsure of what she was saying. It tilted its head back opened its mouth and let out a piercing shriek.

  Cassie fainted.

  Chapter 21

  Skeletons in the Closet

  “Come on Cassie, push!” Hayley said. “He's almost here.”

  “I can’t!” I cried. “It's too hard and I'm too exhausted!”

  “You can’t give up now, it is almost over,” Hayley said, sounding almost angry at me.

  I gave it just one last big push and then he was out. I sighed and laid back down on the bed, waiting for Hayley to check my baby and then bring him to me. She seemed to be taking ages and I hadn’t heard a single sound coming from him yet.

  Why wasn’t he crying? I asked myself. Shouldn’t he be crying by now?

  I sat up a little and looked over to where Hayley and Maria were standing. They were hovering over him and both were looking deathly pale.

  Oh no, I thought. He’s dead!

  “What’s wrong? Why isn’t he crying?” I asked, almost hysterically.

  They both turned and looked at me, but neither spoke.

  “Is he dead?” I screamed, starting to cry.

  They both shook their heads but looked as if they were in shock.

  “I want to see him!” I jumped out of bed and almost fell on the floor. My legs felt a little like jelly, but I steadied myself and walked over to where they were standing. “I want to see him!”

  “Cassie, I . . . ” Maria stopped in mid-sentence and then shook her head and looked down at the ground.

  I almost pushed her out of the way and looked down at my baby lying on the table. I gasped in horror! He was hideous! No wonder they were in no hurry to show him to me! He was covered in coarse black hair and had big pointy teeth and black eyes and a tail! He looked at me and snarled. I backed away and started to scream.

  “No, that's not my baby! He said my baby was like me, not him! Take him away, he's not mine!”

  Someone was shaking me as if to snap me out of my shock.

  “No, leave me alone!” I screamed. “He's not mine there’s been some sort of mistake!”

  “Cassie, Cassie! It's okay, wake up!” I could hear Maria’s voice off in the distance somewhere. “You're having a nightmare.”

  I sat up and opened my eyes, instinctively putting my hands on my stomach. Still pregnant, thank God, it was only a dream. Or was it a premonition? I shuddered and looked at Maria.

  “It was horrible! I was dreaming I had the baby, but it was a horrible monster!”

  Maria leaned over and hugged me.

  “I’m not surprised you're dreaming about monsters after what you've been through, Hun.”

  It slowly started to come back to me— the madman who had kidnapped me, his tools of torture, the room with pictures of kidnapped and murdered women. And then . . . the other man. The other man who transformed from a beautiful, caring, lover into something else! But what exactly was he, a Vampire? Vampires weren’t real, they were a just myth. Or were they?

  Cassie was pretty sure that her dark haired man was a Vampire. His fangs and blood-drinking kind of gave it away!

  So, if the man she dreamt about and the Ghost were one in the same, then what? What had made him change from being human to this other . . . thing? He hadn’t hurt her and had most definitely saved her from being tortured, raped and eventually murdered.

  “How did I get here?” she asked Maria.

  “It's a mystery, my dear. Once again, an orderly found you on the front steps. You were totally naked but wrapped in a blanket.”

  So he saved me and brought me to the hospital.

  “What about the guy who kidnapped me? Do the police know where he lives or who he is?”

  “Well, he didn’t survive to tell the tale. The Ghost did him over pretty bad!” She said grinning. “If he hadn’t, I certainly would have!”

  She told me there had been an anonymous phone call to the cops telling them what had happened and where. When they got there they found Micheal Banks with his throat ripped out, his penis ripped off and stuffed in his mouth and practically no blood in his body. Forensics had searched the area but once again couldn’t find any evidence of the Ghost, other than the macabre body lying on the floor and the broken furniture and door. There were obvious signs of a struggle, but no physical evidence.

  They did, however, find a lot of trace evidence from different females and after seeing the pictures on the walls and his beloved toolbox, decided to do a thorough search of the house and grounds. Using a portable X-ray machine they found untold bones buried in his back yard. Once they started to dig they found the skeletons of fifteen women. Some were badly decomposed, but others died as recently as a few weeks ago. They used the horrifying pictures, dental records and DNA to identify the victim’s bodies so loved ones could be notified. He'd obviously been doing this for quite a while.

  Cassie shuddered. God, she could quite easily have been one of those women if not for the Ghost. Now she understood what, in his roundabout way, he'd been trying to tell her. They could never be together in the real world because in the real world he looked like a monster and people would certainly notice! But how did he come to me a human when I was fully conscious? It was baffling, but she needed to know the answers. Maybe he'd visit her again and she could ask him. But would she feel the same about him, or would she be scared of him now? She honestly didn’t know.

  “I am getting quite tired, Maria. Do you mind if I have a little nap now? I'll try not to freak you out with my screaming this time,” I said, smiling.

  “Of course you can. Best thing right now for you and the baby."

  She hugged me again and then left me, closing the door behind her.

  I closed my eyes and started to drift off to sleep, hoping in my heart of hearts that I would soon get a welcome visitor.

  Chapter 22

  They Walk Among Us

  Someone was calling my name and touching my hand. I opened my eyes and saw a pretty young nurse trying to rouse me.

  Damn it, he didn’t come, I thought.

  “These policemen want to have a word with you. Are you are feeling up to it?” she asked, smiling sweetly.

  I nodded and pulled myself up, asking her to raise my bed so I could sit upright.

  They wanted to know what I remembered about the attack. I told them about a hand going over my mouth and blacking out, then waking up in a stranger’s house. I told the officers that he cooked me dinner and ran me a bath before taking me into “the room.”

  “Do you remember how you got away from him?” the younger policeman asked, frowning.

  I didn’t want to give them any leads or descriptions on the Ghost. I didn’t want them to catch him and then find out he was less than human. What would they do to him? I couldn’t bear to think about it.

  “No, I’m sorry,” I lied. “I only remember being choked with a scarf, and then I woke up here.”

  He nodded, “Pretty much what all the other witnesses have said.”

  He actually looked a bit relieved. I doubt very much the police wanted the Ghost off the streets, either.

  What would I have told them anyway? That the man they were looking for was a Vampire? They'd think I'd hit my head!

  They thanked me very much for my time and left.

  I felt miserable. Would he ever come back to me? And what if he came in his real form? Would I still love him? It was so much to take in and I honestly didn’t have a clue how I was going to feel. I was initially terrified when I saw him, but maybe that was shock. I certainly was no
t expecting him to change into a Vampire!

  The strange thing was, I loved Vampires! Well, at least I loved the ones I'd seen on TV ever since my early teens. I found them very sensual and intriguing and a big turn on! I grew up watching Christopher Lee and Vincent Price horror movies and my favourite movie was Bram Stoker’s Dracula. But then, they were fantasies and never in a million years did I think I'd meet a real live Vampire. Or a real, not so alive, Vampire! It was a totally different experience being face to face with one, not knowing whether he was going to literally suck the life out of you.

  I'd been scared even though I felt sure he loved me and wouldn’t have hurt me. The Vampire side of him, at first, didn’t seem to know who I was. Obviously he must have realised, as he'd freed me from my shackles and taken me to the hospital.

  I texted Maria and asked her if she could call in before going home and grab my key. I wanted her to bring my laptop and a few toiletries from my house. I needed to do some more research.

  I decided to start by researching Vampires. There was a flood of information on the Internet . . . unfortunately, all conflicting. The one common thread was they all needed blood to survive and had fangs. They had once been human. They'd all been turned.

  But everything else was very unclear. Some slept in coffins, some slept in freezers and some even hung upside down in caves or closets. Some could change into bats or other animals. Some burnt up in sunlight and some sparkled. Others got weak or dehydrated. All agreed that decapitation or burning killed a vampire, but staking also killed some vampires while paralysing others. I was more confused than ever but was convinced that my lover was definitely one of these creatures.

  I thought I'd do some research on the Ghost and see what the online stories said. There were hundreds. All were of a handsome, dark haired stranger arriving just before death and saving another innocent victim from being raped or murdered. No eye witnesses described what I'd seen, and all were either unconscious or incoherent at the time of their rescue.

  I was right. He needed that unconscious mind to get in. So how did he come to me? I really didn’t understand. I tried to think back to exactly when the moment it happened, the moment he knew he was going to transform. He'd been fine, almost jubilant, as he belittled my captor. Suddenly his face had changed and he looked terrified. It was right after I felt our baby kick. Could that be it? Had the baby been asleep long enough for him to appear human? Had the baby woken up before he'd been able to free me from the shackles? It would certainly make sense and was the only plausible reason for my handsome dark haired man to appear while I was still awake. It also tied in with the other witness statements of being unconscious and not seeing or hearing anything.

  There was a knock on the door. It opened slowly and a head poked round.

  “Can I come in?” Jenny asked.

  Chapter 23

  Kindred Spirits

  “Of course you can! How are you, Jenny?”

  “I should be asking you that!” Jenny answered, smiling.

  She sat down on the side of the bed and grabbed my hand.

  “I read about it in the paper but didn’t realise it was you until Maria rang me. Tell me everything,” she said, looking at me as if waiting for me to speak.

  I told her how Hayley had just left my place and I was walking back inside when someone put a cloth soaked in chloroform over my mouth. I told her how I slowly became conscious, but my body was still drugged. I could hear a man cooking and singing. He came over and touched me while I was still paralysed. We ate and drank. He gave me a bath. And then I told her about the bedroom and the horrors I'd seen in there.

  “Did you see him?” she asked.

  By “Him” I knew she meant the Ghost. I wanted to tell her, but I couldn’t. How could I describe to anyone what I'd seen? Besides, I felt as if I should protect my dark haired man at all costs. He'd protected us.

  I shook my head.

  “I fainted,” I said, not totally lying.

  She looked disappointed but accepted what I said.

  “Thank God he was there, Cassie. I shudder to think what would've happened to you if not for him. We both owe him our lives.”

  She was right, and I owed him mine twice. This was the second time he'd saved me. I told Jenny how I found out about the close call when I was a teenager, explaining why her story had sounded so familiar to me.

  She was amazed and it made her faith in the Ghost even stronger.

  “He's a wonderful man. A real Guardian Angel,” she said. “I thank God for him every day and wish there was some way I could thank him.”

  “Me too, Jenny, me too,” I agreed.

  How desperately I wanted to thank him for saving me, not once, but twice . . . and especially for giving me the one thing I wanted most in the world— a baby to love and call my own. I was forever indebted to him and he had no idea how much I loved or needed him. I don’t honestly think I'd realised just how much until this very moment.

  “I should go and let you get some sleep,” said Jenny as she stood up and squeezed my hand.

  “I'm quite tired. Really nice of you to come Jenny.”

  “Let me know if you find out any more on our mystery man. He really does intrigue me,” she said as she opened the door. She looked back at me and smiled, and then she was gone.

  You and me both, Jenny. You and me both.

  Chapter 24

  Changing

  “It's over,” he sighed, his shoulders drooping. “Now she'll never be able to love me and this stupid curse will burden me for yet another lifetime.”

  It was true. He had allowed himself to hope as he'd done so many times before. He was the hero rescuing damsels in distress only to be tossed aside once his true colours were revealed— his ugly and monstrous side that mortal women found so hideous. Even his own mother had been terrified of him.

  Of course there were females of his kind, but he was not attracted to them as he was to the humans. He still felt humanity inside him, although he knew this was seemingly impossible. Perhaps it was because he had once been a doctor, a healer of mankind. He cared to his core about the plight of people, and perhaps some remnant of humanity clung to the monster he'd become. The only way into the mortal world was through the love of a mortal woman. The curse would then be lifted and he could walk among them as if one of them. But for that to happen, the woman would have to first love him in his monstrous form . . . not that of the man she saw in her dreams.

  Vampires had such a bad rap. Not all of them were blood sucking fiends. Well, not the fiend part anyway. They had to suck blood to survive and he'd found what he thought was a fair way of doing it, killing two birds with one stone so to speak. Not only was he getting the blood he needed to survive, but in the process was also ridding the streets of vile, disgusting men. He compared himself to a modern day Robin Hood, saving the weak and defenseless and stamping out the bullies.

  Certainly there had been very bad Vampires throughout history, which hadn’t helped his cause. The most famous of all was, of course, Vlad the Impaler. He'd impaled thousands of people for all the town to see— not exactly the best way to keep yourself anonymous! But there were worse and less known Vampires, too. Gilles de Rais was a French Nobleman who was even one of Joan of Arc’s guards. He was very trusted and respected until he was outed and his shocking reality revealed to all. He gave all Vamps a bad name, as his favourite delight was to torture and murder young boys. He would hang them until almost unconscious and then let them down, cuddling them and kissing them and telling them he never meant to hurt them. He'd then go about raping and decapitating them, sometimes even gutting them and pulling out their intestines and wrapping himself in them.

  This was why he had the urge to kill evil men. He did not want to be labeled or put into the same category as the vile Vampires who perpetuated the horrible legends. But of course, it was not only males who caused the negative myths. Countess Elizabeth Bathory had kidnapped and murdered young virtuous girls and bathed in
their blood. Of course everyone knows that a Vampire stays looking as young as the day they were turned as long as they keep up their blood intake. She just took it that step further and bathed in it as well!

  He was ashamed to come from the same bloodlines as any of these treacherous monsters, but unfortunately they were all tied together one way or another. He'd never turned a human, always careful either to kill them or take just what was needed to survive. He, personally, had never been given the choice and, of course, would never have chosen to be like this. He missed feeling the sunlight on his face and the taste of food. He could eat food, but it was tasteless now and served no purpose. He missed interacting with humans most of all. He had been a very social person with a busy medical practice. He missed those days when he'd spend almost every waking hour either at the hospital or partying with friends. He didn’t even see his fate coming.

  He'd been a little drunk and had stopped for a pee on the walk home. He never saw what or who hit him but remembered coming to in excruciating pain. A young vampire sat beside him apologising for what she'd done. She couldn’t have been more than 17 and looked more like a waif than a Vampire. Her clothes were tattered and her face sunken in. She really appeared to be in a bad condition and he found out later he was the first meal she’d had in weeks. She tried to explain to him what she'd done, but he could not comprehend it at the time. In his confusion he thought she was some kind of lunatic and that she'd somehow poisoned him.