Vampire Journal

My vampire gets very brutal in this chapter, you’ve been warned.

Do you have a light, my new mortal friend? I don’t smoke very often, but every now and then I do enjoy it. Ah, thank you. No, I only had the one lighter, but I lost it at my parents’ house night before last. Yeah, I did. Perhaps you saw it on the news? The house fire on the other side of town? Yeah, that was theirs, though that was merely the coup de grace.

I don’t know what it was that sent me looking for them. I never wanted to see the bastards again. But for some reason, I was walking through my old neighborhood. I finally reached my parents’ home about an hour and a half after sundown.

Well, I take that back. I do know why I was out wandering around. Remember how I said my business for Wolfram and Hart was a safe house/spying operation? Well, the lawyer Lyle called. Seems their rogue vampire was causing hell, no pun intended, for them and they had to smuggle a demon out of LA for a while. Since I’m only four hours away, they decided that my place would be a great hang out for this…thing. I don’t even know what kind of demon he is. He’s big, scaly, reeks of sulfur, and talks in this amazingly deep voice. He was ranting about some chick named Angela. Swearing vengeance, demanding sacrifices, and making one hell of a mess of my place. I tell you, I sure hope a maid service will be able to get rid of those stains.

Huh? Angelus? Not Angela? Oh, that’s the rogue vampire. You’re awfully up to date on vamps…he’s an old one huh? Well, hell, even vampires go insane. Believing he has a soul? Must read that Anne Rice trash. We don’t have souls. There is no redemption for us. Where do you come by your knowledge?

Well, no, you don’t have to answer me. I don’t really care, I was just curious. I was telling you about my parents, after all.

So anyways, there I am, looking into the window of their house. I’ve been dead six years now, and it still looked the same. Same ratty furniture, same glossy wood tables, same threadbare carpet. I walked slowly around the house, peering into windows, wishing I could get inside. I didn’t want to see them, but hell, I was here wasn’t I? Might as well make the best of a bad situation.

In the backyard I got a hell of a surprise. There was a little boy playing in a sandbox in the porch light. I was confused. I was dead, so my parents had another little boy, to try and close the hole in the family? I listened carefully, and heard my sister’s voice in the house. Oh. She had had a child. My nephew. Interesting.

I told this little boy that I had to talk to his grandparents, and would he please let me inside? Its unlocked, he said, so absorbed in his toys that he didn’t even look up. I figured that was a good enough invite for me to get in, so I tried. It was. I walked through the kitchen, no one there. The linoleum was more yellowed, the cupboards above the stove more grease stained, though cleaned up as best they could be. I left the kitchen and walked into the living room. I got another surprise.

Something new was there, where it couldn’t be seen from the front window. It was my picture. It was in a dark stained oak frame and there were black roses, dried, in two vases surrounding the picture. I had not seen myself in over 6 years, no reflection in the mirror, yeah, so I sat on the vacant couch and studied it.

The first thing I noticed was my skin. I had had this picture taken only a month before I was changed. I’m much paler now, but back then, I had been a major sun worshiper. Not in the Wiccan way, just in the “lay in the sun and bake yourself” SoCal way. I’m almost ghostly white now, but back then I was chestnut tanned. My hair, long, auburn, and wavy, hung almost to my shoulder.

That was one thing that I was still pissed off about with my parents. When I died, they cut my hair. I have a nice, boring, pretty boy hair cut, but when I was alive, it flew about me in a glorious wave of reddish brown. I miss my hair, it doesn’t grow anymore.

My nose, slim and too long, reminds me of a Roman bust I saw once of some long dead senator. My lips were too thin, giving an almost bitter look to my smile. My perpetual five o’clock shadow was visible, nothing I ever did got rid of it. Remember that episode of the Simpson’s when Homer was teaching Bart to shave? It was like that, I’d shave and have the shadow back before I was even out of the bathroom.

I have a square jaw, but that never got me anywhere. I kept hoping it made me look heroic when I was a teenager, but I know better. It just makes the lower part of my face huge.

I was then and I am now, tall and slender. I don’t look it sitting down, but yeah, I’m a pretty tall guy. Fine, I’ll stand up for you. See? 6’6” of vampire glory. Then I saw my eyes. Yeah, I know my best feature. I loved them in life. Are they still so damn cool?

My left eye is a shining emerald green, clear and bright, and so very warm and caring. My right, as you can see, is the color of wet flint. Hard and grey, I learned early on to look someone in the eye with my head cocked so only my right met theirs when I wanted to intimidate. These beautiful eyes even got me a couple of dates, back in my freshman year of college. Amazingly sexy, she told me. Nothing to boost the ego like a hottie telling you that you’re sexy. Of course, then I caught her in bed with four other guys and two other women. Crushed my ego. Dropped out of college. Moved back in with my parents.

No, that wasn’t the only reason I left college, I was bombing the classes too. My obsessive-compulsive disorder was getting the better of me, so I moved home to better deal with it.

Amazing what one stupid picture can dredge up right? Huh? Oh right, well anyways, I was still staring at my picture when Mom walked in. She gasped, dropped her purse, and slumped into one of the chairs near me.

You’ve come back, she said. Oh yeah, I told her, but not for long. You see, I’m just a messenger of doom. She paled. What did I mean? Well, the family is in terrible danger. I’d come all the way back from the land of the dead to warn them to be careful. Man, the look on her face was just unreal. Terror and joy and sickness warred for space. She raised her voice, calling for my father, my sister to come and come quick.

I explained again, once they were all there that doom walked among them. The danger would be there that night and there was not much they could do. My father blustered and blew and hemmed and hawed and finally, unable to contain his grumbling any longer, asked what this horrible danger was.

I grinned.

Me.

That’s when I changed, my face distorting from the demon inside. My mother and sister shrieked, my dad roared. Hissing, I leapt towards my mortal family. My dad fell first, clutching his chest where my swiping hands had torn open his flesh. Mom swooned, tumbling painfully to the floor. By this time, my hiss had degenerated into an evil chuckle, and I stalked towards my sister. She grabbed at the mantle, looking for something to fight me off with. She’s younger than I was, and we had had several knockdown drag out fights before. Usually she would come out on top, even though she was a full foot shorter than I was, because she was so damned quick. But she knew that she was fucked now.

I didn’t hurry, I didn’t look away, I just bored into her with my eyes. Her frantic hand grabs turned slow, lackadaisical, lethargic, and I knew she was succumbing to her fear. That’s when her hand fell on the fireplace poker. A savage light filled her eyes as she hauled back and smashed me across the face with it. I tumbled with the blow.

She snarled, raising the poker over her head, ready to bring it down upon my prone form. Using my preternatural quickness, I virtually disappeared. She dropped the poker with a sickened gasp, and took a step towards our father. That’s when I grabbed her hair, yanked her back off her feet. Look who I have, I mocked.

For when I flitted away, I had blasted out the back door, grabbed my nephew, and back inside. He started crying then, and so did my sister. No, she moaned, no don’t hurt him, for the love of God, don’t hurt him.

The love of God? Maybe you haven’t noticed, bitch, I snarled, but I’m a vampire. God has no love for me. Tossing the kid aside, I lashed down, and picked my sister up by the throat. She struggled, but couldn’t scream, because I had used too much strength grabbing her. I had driven my fingers into her jaw, pinning her mouth shut. I grinned slyly, then started pulling.

Jaw pinned shut or not, she screamed a lot before she died. Of course, when your lower mandible is torn away, it’s impossible not to. I held her above me, letting the blood spurt into my mouth before dropping her corpse to the floor. I looked around. My father had bled to death as I fought my sister, pity. I so wanted to hurt him more. My mother was dazed, incoherent, holding the body of her grandson. His skull had cracked when I threw him, headfirst from the blood smear, into the wall. I pulled out my silver Zippo, flicked it to life, and tossed it into her dress. She screamed and flailed as the flames climbed over her. Thrashing about like she was, the curtains and the furniture naturally began to burn.

I snagged my picture from over the mantle, and left through the front door. From a few blocks away up in a tree, I watched the house burn. An amazing sense of closure washed over me. I was truly alone now, I remember thinking.

What? Well, if you didn’t want the details, why’d you keep asking? I mean, hello, evil right here. What did you expect, moonlight and rainbows?

It’s late. I’m going to leave now. I’ll talk to you again, tomorrow, if you want. I’ll be here. And hey. Remember that I am a demon/human hybrid. I’ll respect the rules of the place, but don’t give me shit again about my actions. You’re just another walking juice box to me.