The First

by Michael Santana

  I listened and nodded, telling him that I hoped he found his partner safe from harm. Of course, I knew that would not be the case. When they finally did find him, it would be in pieces. I left his arms many blocks from where I had left his legs, and his head, I tossed into the river with the knife sticking out of the top of it.

  To keep my privacy, I purchased the house and the land surrounding it on all four sides. Since most shops do their business during the day, Hai was the one sent to pick up the things he needed. He purchased eating utensils, toiletries and other miscellaneous items that I no longer had any use for.

  To answer any questions curious merchants might have about where the money came from, he said that he shopped for an uncle, who was too sick to leave the house.

  When he wasn't running errands, he was studying. I found I was an adept teacher, with nearly two millennia of knowledge to pass on. He was also a proficient student and had mastered English, French as well as Spanish by the time he turned sixteen. I watched as he grew into a handsome young man, well-educated and cared for. Unfortunately, by this time, I had already grown tired of his company.

  He had become very persistent with his questions about my past, but every time he would ask, I would change the subject. I knew that one question would lead to another until finally, he would come to the one he really wanted to ask. Who had done what to me and how did I deal with it.

  These roads, I never wanted to travel again. I just wanted to be my happy monster self, living by killing.

  In all the years he spent with me, I do not believe he feared me, but I also cannot say he ever truly trusted me. If he had known my history, he would have known that his mistrust was founded..

  The most important things about me, he knew. He had seen me feed, had seen me in the sunlight, and had seen what no man before had ever. He had seen me break down from emotion and become all too human.

  He never did anything to offend me, not once. Never a cross word, never an intrusion, and never asking for anything. Yet, every time I looked in his eyes, the memories would overtake me again. I started to despise him for that.

  Thoughts of killing him had crossed my mind hundreds of times during the time that we spent together.

  "I never should have taken on the burden," I thought to myself constantly.

  I had realized a few months after taking him in, what my real motive had been. I had wanted to erase the horrors of my own past through him. It didn't take me long to realize that this was something I could never do. The young man that had suffered at the hands of the cruel masters had died long ago. I was the culmination of all the things that had happened to me since then. It had made me who I was, not what, but who I was. I had quit being human long before I changed.

  Not once, have I felt remorse for anything I have done, save Keeza, and in time I even forgave myself for that. I realized, that if I hadn't killed her that night, she surely would have died at the hands of Typhon. If by some miracle, Typhon hadn't killed her, time still would have taken her while I was in the infancy of my being On Hai's eighteenth birthday, I gave him a gift of the home we shared and enough money to last him ten lifetimes. Then I told him it was time for me to move on.

  I never offered to change him; I didn't want to spend eternity with the constant reminder of my childhood. There were no tears when we parted company. There were no embraces or promises to see one another again.

  He thanked me again for saving him that fateful night and for my generosity after. Then without another word, he turned and walked away. Only then did I realize that I was to him, what he was to me, a reminder of something he hoped to forget. He was as thankful to be rid of me as I was of him. I never saw Hai again.

  Chapter 18

  I left New York in November of 1872, on a ship bound for Genoa. My life has taken many a strange series of turns for the most trivial of reasons. This time was no different. I had been roaming the docks looking for a meal that could be easily taken when I heard a voice carrying lightly across the air.

  “Come Sophia. We must not dawdle, you know how your father is,” I heard a woman’s voice saying.

  I immediately ceased my hunt for blood and started searching for the owner of that sweet voice. I moved through the crates on the dock as a mouse would in a maze trying to find the cheese. It came once again, but louder this time. I was getting closer.

  “Sophia darling, do what mommy says,” the voice said firmly.

  The woman’s beauty didn’t match that of her voice. She was in fact very plain with her mousy brown hair pulled up into a bun. The daughter, a toddler, didn’t share her mother’s plainness and almost glowed as she looked up into the woman’s eyes. I watched as they boarded the ship both seeming to enjoy the idea of the trip.

  A tight embrace from a bearded man on the ship, who I assumed was her husband, met the woman as she stepped aboard.

  The man then stooped and picked the child up high in the air, then spun in a circle. With her arms outstretched and her legs flailing in the air, she laughed a laugh that was shrill and delightful.

  A seven-man crew stood before the bearded man seeming to wait for orders. I snuck aboard as they received them. Sneaking down in the cargo hold, I was overcome by the scent of alcohol. A sweet, yet astringent aroma filled the bottom of the ship. The smell came from almost two-thousand barrels of the liquid. I snuck behind them and lay down in the shadows.

  I felt the boat start to sway back and forth, as we left the dock and started our journey. I heard the crew shouting to one another as they took their positions. I closed my eyes and waited for the time to come when I would make myself known to them.

  Sleep took hold of the family and crew as the night drew on. When an hour had passed without hearing the shuffling of feet on the deck, I emerged from the hold.

  Finally free from the intense aroma of alcohol, the smell of sea salt assaulted my senses. After taking a few seconds to acclimate myself, I glanced up at the crow’s nest and saw my first victim. I scaled the wooden pole quickly and took the man unaware. If his perch had been any lower, the crew would have seen him struggling.

  His eyes opened as I placed my hand over his mouth. Placing a finger over my lips, I bid him be silent. In the instant, it took him to realize his peril I was on him, tearing and feasting. A torrent of blood jetted past my mouth and drenched the side of my face with the sticky liquid. I placed my mouth over the artery and swallowed. The blood filled my mouth faster than I could drink. When his blood stopped seeping, I tossed his corpse overboard out of the basket and far into the sea before descending from the nest. Salty sprinkles from the sea rained over me as the waves crashed against the sides of the boat. After landing back on the deck, I went in search of the young mother and child. I found them, in quarters with their father, which someone had outfitted for the tiny family. I snuck through the door and paused, looking for the child. She lay in a bed by herself in the corner of the room.

  Little golden curls lay across her shoulders and the head of the little doll she held so tightly in her arms. The doll seemed to be an exact copy of the child herself, reminding me of the one the Voodoo priestess had made of me. It was much more detailed than the one used to torment me.

  The ceramic face with its light blue eyes seemed to come to life when I moved past it. The little blonde curls matched the ones of the little girl down to the size of them. The blue gown the doll wore had the same daisies as the girl’s dress did. The designer of the doll was a true artist, whoever they were.

  Moving across the room, I sat on the bed next to the child’s mother. The added weight on the side of the bed made her body shift ever so slightly in my direction. Her eyes slowly opened and looked into mine. Immediately she closed her eyes again tightly, the pressure creating creases on their lids. Her little fists rose to her face and rubbed at them violently.

  The eyes opened again to find me still sitting there looking at her. I began to study her. The eyes were uneve
n, not in an ugly way, just a way that you notice. Shoulder length brown hair splayed behind her, exposing ears too large for her head. Her nose, small and almost button like flared with the increase in her breathing.

  I calmed her with just a touch before lifting her from her place beside her husband and carrying her to her child. There we both lay stroking the little one as the father slept soundly only steps away. Rising from the bed, I moved back to the father and fed. He didn’t resist as I held him in a firm grasp. The woman never uttered a sound as I drained the man. A light sound of ripping flesh followed by the sounds of me quietly feeding is all she heard.

  When all life had left him, I carried the new widow back to her husband’s side and lay her next to him. If the sight of his dead body startled her, she hid it well. She looked at me and only me. Her hands reached out for me, her arms offering a warm embrace.

  This, I accepted and let her pull me into her chest. I could smell the soap she had used the last time she bathed. She smelled like roses on a summer morning. Her body stiffened, as her flesh gave way to my invading fangs. The child mewled in her sleep as the mother did in my embrace. I laughed as she kicked the dead man’s body onto the floor.

  After nuzzling into her neck, I pulled myself away to look at her. The smile that shone on her face erased all signs of the plainness that had previously plagued her.

  “And now?” She asked.

  I loved the way she spoke, the way she enunciated her words. I loved the way her lips pulled on the letters, turning them into musical notes that her tongue played.

  “Now?” I asked.

  “Yes, my dark prince, what now? You and your angels have descended on this ship to take it to hell, have you not.

  “I do not know where they go when I am done with them. I just provide their passage.” I said playfully.

  Sophia had awoken from her sleep and sat on her bed staring at the two of us. The child’s eyes widened as I tore into the neck of her mother sending a shower of blood across the bed and onto the floor. The woman’s head lulled to the left of her body and fell in the space between the pillows, smiling.

  Sophia came bounding across the room with her yellow curls bouncing. She held her doll by its feet, its head dragging the floor. Reaching out with her tiny hand, she clasped her mother’s in her own. Then she lifted the toy to her chest and hugged it tightly. The girl raised one of her mother’s limp arms and placed the doll under it.

  I wondered why the mother had thought me a demon and hadn’t shown any surprise?. What horrible crime had she committed? What made her feel that demons would seek her out?

  I had lost track of the child while pondering these questions but soon found her lying on the floor next to the corpse of her father. She had pulled his arms across her chest for protection. Snuggled deep into him, his cold dead eyes stared over her shoulders like the guardian she had sought. Her chin slowly buried itself in her chest, and she closed her eyes, safe from harm. I let her lie in her father’s embrace. The crew received no such mercy, as I hunted them throughout the ship. I didn’t rush; in fact, I took my time. I knew if I killed them all the first night I would go hungry for the rest of the voyage.

  They were very creative in their hiding spots. If their smell hadn’t given them away, their heartbeats surely would have. It became a game. I even let some think they had escaped my grasp and would watch amused as they scrambled looking for other places to avoid my kiss. I waited until they found another spot and then I would creep up on them. “Here I come. I’m going to get you, I said in a sing-song voice.“ I found them in all sorts of uncomfortable places. One man had folded himself in a locker to escape me. I don’t know how he had done it, but his feet were at his head with his toes pressing against his forehead. I found this so imaginative I saved him for last. I could hear him shifting and moaning in the cramped little coffin. His elbows and knees kept hitting the sides as he tried in vain to find a comfortable position. I sat outside his hideaway for short periods of time, listening to the grunts and whimpers. I would walk away and find someone else and then come back, being sure to make as much noise as I could. I did this over and over again. Until it was his turn. After all were dead including the man in the locker, I went back for Sophia. The room had begun to smell of decay. She no longer rested under the dead arms of her father, but of those of her mother. Insects had begun feasting on both of the corpses in the room. Some had taken errant bites on the child, leaving little red welts up and down her arms and the sides of her face.

  I flew to her and snatched the dead woman’s arms away from her tiny body.

  A little scream of surprise escaped her as we flew back to the other side of the room. I ran my hands through her golden curls and remembered her doll. I placed her down and went back to the body of the mother. The doll lay on the floor beneath her. I brushed the insects from the doll’s face and hair and then the folds of the fabric of its dress, before returning it to the child.

  Taking the doll from me, she waved her fingers at the doll scolding it in a language all her own. I do not presume to know the doll’s transgressions, but they must have been serious because the scolding was a stern one.

  This little piece of theatre made me laugh uproariously causing the child to look up at me disapprovingly. This gesture, also hilarious in its own right, caused me to laugh even louder, which caused the child to stamp her foot at me.

  Her eyes glared into mine for a moment challenging me, before slowly returning to the doll with which she resumed her scolding. The little piglet was tugging on emotions I never realized I had.

  Lifting her in my arms, I took her to the cargo hold and left her to play with her little friend. Meanwhile, I cleaned the dead from the ship. The bodies that spent the day under the sun began to ripen. They had to be dealt with before the smell could bring more insects and predatory birds. I threw them all over the side.

  I returned moments later to find her sleeping in the little nest I had made for myself. I lay next to her listening to her heart strumming rhythmically. She turned her little body towards me and offered up her doll. It was such a sweet gesture with no hidden agenda, just a child doing what came naturally to her.

  I took the doll from her arms and then did what came naturally to me; I fed. Her one and only cry was for one that couldn’t help her. I cannot be certain what the child’s first words were.

  However, “Momma,” was the last thing she ever said. I didn’t tear or rip at her tender flesh instead; I made her death swift and painless as possible.

  After disposing of the little one in the ocean, I spent two more days on the ship before I saw land. When the moon rose in the sky, I disembarked from the ship and bid farewell to the “Mary Celeste,” leaving her to the currents of the sea.

  I would love to spend more time telling you about all my wonderful adventures, but the pallor of your skin tells me we have very little time left, so I will be as brief as possible.

  I moved through Europe with Madrid, Rome, and London all feeling the sting of my visits. I roamed the nights as the seasons, and the times changed, I watched as automobiles, and motorcycles replaced the horses and the carriages they had drawn. Long flowing dresses became miniskirts. Airplanes crossed continents in hours taking its passengers to all remote points of the world. Rockets broke through the clouds racing for the stars leaving billowing white trails of fumes behind them.

  Now during this time, I saw the bestial side of humanity, or more accurately their inhumanity. The things I have seen “Man” do to itself has made anything I have ever done seem trivial. The genocides committed in the name of religion, politics or race have caused more death and destruction than I could do in ten thousand years.

  Joseph Stalin is responsible for the deaths of millions. Hitler the same, in the Holocaust, millions of Jews died under his orders. The insanity does not stop; it spreads like a virus all around the globe to others. The atomic bombs dr
opped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki caused the deaths of over two hundred thousand men, women, and children. These little atrocities didn’t escape my notice. Sciences, which could have been used to cure were used mostly to kill. Other breakthroughs in science and technology have begun to make it more difficult for me to do what I have done for centuries, hunt. It became harder but not impossible. There are so many ways to feed. Sometimes you deliver. Zealots will knock on my door asking me” if I have heard the good news?” Students come to me selling candy in hopes of acquiring new instruments, uniforms or equipment for their schools. Grown men looking for atonement and second chances hawked magazines. Young adults roam the streets into the wee hours of the morning. They frequent the “Goth” bars, where tormented souls go in hopes of meeting one of my kind. Yet, panic quickly sets in when they realize that they have genuinely found one. I’m nothing like the ones they have read about in their books.

  The literary scene has been plagued with novels that portray us as loving and tortured souls. I am sure we can be loving, but a tortured soul? I am not so sure that is an accurate description. Neither I, Irisi or Manuela were ever tormented by what we have become. I was confused at first but never conflicted or tormented. Irisi basked in the fact that no man could ever harm her again and that she could take an eternity making them pay. Manuela chose to become one of us for love.

  It has been nearly one hundred and fifty years since I have seen the two. Tonight, the three of us will be reunited. I am so excited. That brings us to you my dear, and your little friend, wherever she has run off to hide. The Girl Scouts that come offering their cookies, you offered me Yummy Thin Mints, crunchy Do-Si-Dos, Chewy Caramel Delites, but you forgot to mention the delicious red torrents of blood you have brought.