MORE HORRORS IN THE DARK.... 1/3/13

Days without food. Occasional mouthfuls of rusty water... And the dark. The worst is the dark. An itch runs down his spine. What is it, an insect?... a finger tip?... sweat?... a nerve? In the dark you never know. He waited near the window, the one with the loose metal cover. Was it day? Was it night? He didn't know, but the light never leaked through again. But was he alone? When the light did leak through he saw it. He saw the eye and a tiny, narrow sliver of the face. Brown, he thought it was. or perhaps amber, or maybe hazel? It was hard to tell. It happened so fast. Sometimes he thought it was still there. That's how he imagined it..... an 'it.'.... And other times he was sure it was gone.

Then he smelled it, a sticky, milky smell and he knew the thing was back. He heard noises like children make when they click their tongue against the roof of their mouth to make like a horse. And it went on and on and on and never stopped. First to the left. Then to the right. It came in close and faded back. But no footsteps...none.

He started to click back and it answered. It came close. First he heard the fart. Then he smelled it. Guess it was the milk... MILK! There must be some kind of food in here. And that thing knew where it was. Not a ghost. It couldn't be a ghost. It had to be alive. So on the next milk-click adagio, he reached out... into the dark.... his hand out there before him, invisible in the void. A mind shark could 'swim' by at any moment and take the whole arm... shoulder too. Once saw a guy on Prospekt Street, in Moscow, a veteran from some military thing in Chechnia  and he didn't have an arm and he didn't have a shoulder. Not a good look for a guy in a wife-beater. On top of being mutilated, he obviously lacked any discernible fashion sense too. Maybe they hit him in the head? who knows?

But he made contact. There wasn't any mind shark and he felt something. He touched it... a rubbery face.... a little one... a little rubbery face.... Like the troll doll his cousin Misha glued to the dash of the new Peugot. Except the part where the hair was wasn't hollow. It was round... a little round head .... a 'pin head'. He didn't know the term 'micro-cephalic' and he wouldn't have used it if he did. Then it smiled (he could feel it. ewww, he touched some teeth) and made more clicking sounds....

Who are you? - he said...... No answer. Just clicks. Then the milk stink... a belch... more milk stink. But the sound was a little too low. Like ,maybe, just above his belt buckle. He crouched down and reached out again. No legs! It had no legs! The milk drinker shrieked and bit his hand, right between the thumb and forefinger. Then it sped away, using its arms like crutches. 

The thing ( who knew the gender?) raced down an unseen passage. He heard the pelvis thud against the floor. And the prisoner from Moscow stumbled after. Milk... Maybe he'd get some milk?..... Warm milk.... tepid milk..... That's how hungry he was.  He didn't care. 

Then the lights momentarily flickered. He heard a noise. In a cluttered storage room room off to the side sat a being. Not human. Not ape... A being. quietly stripping the meat from a dead, little rhesus monkey and shoving it into it's mouth. The poor, little monkey looked so pathetic... He gasped. The being  dropped the half eaten  monkey and gave chase

Please let it just be a ghost. Please let it just be a ghost.

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The DISEMBODIED SPIRIT known as JOHANNON TALKS...... 1/2/13

I am the spirit-narrator known as Johannon. In the flesh I was body servant to the young and still mortal Jonathon ben Macabi, also known as Tomas de Macabea. I saved him when evil Crusader brigands burned that Provencal synagogue. He lived. I died. Although, what really happened to me? My essence did not change. I am still here. Well, when I want to be. For I see other realms too. And although not yet admitted to The Radiance of The Sapphire Throne, that too will happen. What you call a thousand years is not so long. I can wait. I know oblivion is but an illusion. The best is yet to come. Though my life-eater charge, your Tomas, also known as Jonathon, does not know for sure. He has faith... most of the time, but with occasional lapses. This age we pass through is scientific and people are so literal. Newborns are given percentiles and the dead go into coffins in the ground. Do they believe in The World To Come? Do you? How self-serving and cynical this world is. I see the commercials. I know that word. Sick children wracked with a terrible wasting disease, go to a facility called 'Saint Jude's' where they are attended to by those providing costly, costly, costly medical services. Though families pay not one shekel. Yet millions of your dollars are collected every year, for they who provide those services expect to be paid. Their fees are pegged to possible benefits and in few ways related to the actual task performed. Families don't pay, but many, many, many others do. The physician wants that money. I wonder what the nurse gets. In my time healers answered a 'call.' Now no one does... in any field.  You are your brother's keeper. It's written in both The Unitarian and Trinitarian Bibles. You know that. I know you do.

Poor Jonathon. He sits. He thinks. He has his dreams. See him in there all alone. The screen-of-visions is dark. No stories pour forth from that surface. And the hearth burns with a low, weak, orange glow. A vampire ponders death. He asks - What if all I believe is but illusion? What if life is life and death is death and dark is dark? What color is oblivion? Edith silently enters from the kitchen with a hot, clear cider. She puts it down (on a napkin) where he can get it and leaves. But he doesn't even know she was there. 

Tomorrow night he meets with the young people again... five more new ones. Liam and Max and Kevin and the other one are bringing friends. He'll put little drops of his blood in the tea. They'll drink it. This is the second time, so they shouldn't be so reluctant. I don't know if they'll be able to meet in that little cafe anymore. The booth in the back will be too small. He's going to need a bigger place. 

They have to go out and make the world a better place. His blood strengthens them. Cures illness and all that. Then they have to come back and talk about it and go out and do it again..... Like a paranormal Weight Watchers, or Gamblers Anonymous. I see things. I know.

But he wonders. This scientific age breeds doubt. Is some miraculous spark there in the blood which he passes along, or is it just microbial in nature? Could there be some prion, undiscovered by science, responsible for it all? Is it even possible to know. 

When we recite the Tenants of The Faith during services in the synagogue (which means meeting house) we say 'I believe with a most perfect faith...' ... 'Most perfect'.... How comforting that must be.

I hope my one time charge remembers.....

Next time you'll go back to the entities in Russia, but I wanted you to know...

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ATROCITIES IN THE DARK... the nightmare on the steppes continues... 1/2/13

Many places out on the Russian steppes are devoid of human life. The abandoned secret complex exists in such a locale. And save for the one trembling prisoner locked inside, no other mortal heart beats anywhere near the place. The closest town is eighty one miles away. There are no roads. Few even know it's here. The doors and windows are sealed shut... blocked by heavy metal shutters. Daylight never enters. Night goes on forever. A fox stalks voles along the periphery, but she doesn't know what's inside. Crows peck the eyes from cornered squirrels upon the roof, yet they're ignorant of much greater tortures within.

Down a dark, dark hallway, with his back pressed hard against the wall sat the trembling prisoner, too afraid to move, too afraid to breathe. Days in blackness. No food. Tiny mouthfuls of rusty water from leaky faucets found stumbling through the blackness. And sometimes he'd hear things. Insane laughter. Moaning. Crying. Desperate screams. Someone sawed a foot off with a hack saw. He knew he heard. The words were familiar. If not Ukrainian, then Russian, or perhaps some dialect from Belarus. Once, after a rather long period of silence, he ventured out, inching his way along the old tiled floor. And he felt it. He touched it. At first he pulled back reflexively, but it seemed to slide toward him. So he picked it up... a severed human foot. Quite a small one. Perhaps a child's. After a time it dissolved in his hand and he cried. Then he dropped his pants and backed into an alcove to relieve himself.

Soon after his skin began to crawl. Tiny, insect-like pinpoints scurried 'round his body, stowaways from the 'night' before, stowaways from those things under the paint. And he scratched... he scratched... he scratched... he scratched til his nails were wet. He scratched til he bled all over. Then he lay on his side, all curled up, as other little things with soft warm tongues crept out to lick the blood.

Terror takes its toll. A soul can only take so much and after a while numbness sets in. You've heard stories. You've seen things. Even martyrs on the stake stop screaming and the flames are just the flames. The prisoner was like that. Just the dark can do it. Just the stench. Just the ghosts. 

Were his eyes open? Were they closed? Did it matter? He just lays there. But then he saw the light... just a sliver... just a little... just a bit. A shutter was loose. A cover was off and he crawled toward it. He peered out. So narrow it was. Just yellow. Just light. It burned. It hurt. After days in darkness he couldn't take it and looked away. But the knife edge of radiance followed him inside and he saw where it feel, upon the wet and shiny surface of another eye... someone else's eye.

The prisoner shudders. He whispers - Who's there?! But the eye is gone. He waits until the sun goes down and darkness comes again...

And then the thing comes back.....

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DARK ........ 1/1/13

He struggled to his feet and stood there, watching them wield the metal cover back in place. Three minutes later they were done. He heard them pick up the tools, scramble into the helicopter and lift off. And then he heard nothing... absolutely nothing... Sealed in a maze of cold, black, silence. No one ever said where they were taking him. No one ever said what they'd do... if he'd live... if he'd die. An ice pick through the eye would have been better. 

He wanted to sit down, but was scared to make any noise at all. He wanted to curl up with his back pressed tightly into a corner and wait for death. Where were the walls? What was in there? How would it end? How vast was the space behind him and what was back there? He wanted to pray, but was afraid to whisper and unless he said the words they didn't seem real. 

Then he hiccuped.... a simple spasm of the diaphragm. But the sound absolutely terrified him. Five heartbeats later he heard another hiccup, but it was not his own. He listened, still and quiet as a corpse. The sound never came again. And he stayed that way till he fell asleep. Sometime later he awoke on the floor with his mouth pressed against a pool of drool on what tasted like dirty linoleum. Still nothing. No light. No sound. And he peed. He couldn't help it. He just peed. Then he slowly got up and began to shuffle into the void. 

Now ghosts can be patient. Time means nothing to them. To be dead for a heartbeat is the same as a billion years. Indeed, some are immobile statues, staring and thinking and feeling for eons. And the man slowly progressed for seventy two hours before he met one. First he heard the dripping. First he heard the water. He felt along the wall till he found a door and he ever so softly opened it.... drip... drip... drip... He heard it again. He needed it. He wanted it. So he got down on his hands and knees and began to crawl. Somehow it felt safer close to the hard, cold, tile floor. The sharp, little bone right below each knee cap pinched the skin and what little flesh there was behind it tight against the floor. But still he went on. ... Shhh, was that a sigh, or just the silent hissing in his skull?

Where were the bugs? There were no bugs. And where were the mice, the rats, the vermin? Suddenly the lights flickered. He tensed. He flinched. He saw her. There before him, maybe eighteen inches away sat a huge, white., reeking mound. A neolithic 'Venus' sheathed in fat, enthroned in a shallow,galvanized tub beneath a rusty, dripping shower head protruding from a cracked and peeling ceiling. 

He froze. The thing looked down at him through flat, white, lifeless eyes and smiled, revealing rotted teeth and pink-red, bleeding gums. Then he saw the maggots. She was sitting in them. The tub was filled with them and she was eating them.

The illumination, or whatever it was flickered again. She was gone. The tub was clean and all was quiet. Then he heard a click and it was dark once more. He cried. He sobbed. He was thirsty and desperately wanted to find the knob that would release the water, if there was water. But he couldn't do it. He couldn't move he was afraid to leave the floor. So he felt his way over to a wall and made for the hallway again.

Perhaps it was all just an hallucination? Sensory deprivation can cause such things. Perhaps that's all it was? 

But then he heard the voices and soon he heard the screams. God help me. God help me. God help me. He whispered over and over again. He sat with his back pressed hard against the wall..... till something under the paint began to move...

God help me. God help me. But this time it wasn't him...

And then what lay beneath the paint broke through...

'The Dark'..... more tomorrow.

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ISOLATION ........... 12/31/13

The Russian steppes go on forever.... endless vistas of tussock and tundra... no trees... just horizon... a sea that doesn't move. Human structures and other artificial violations  are rare in these parts, but occasionally you'll come across isolated rotting structures. Some are small, though others seem like neolithic cities. Rooms open into rooms. And crumbling, linoleum passageways lead nowhere. 

They say Stalinist technicians tried to make monsters here, sad hominid mixes, part man, part ape. Officially they never succeeded.. But that was just officially. And when Moscow lost interest the technicians were recycled into something else. That's what they did. One day a big truck pulled up. Nameless, low level functionaries man-handled two or three heavyweight wood chippers out onto the permafrost.

That night at dinner (maybe 'evening  feeding would be more accurate), the soup had a certain tang and after the vodka and babkah, all were fast asleep. A bit later, silent minions commandeered from an up river gulag laid each technician down upon the floor of the recreation hall, a wide, unfinished space used for basketball and public canings. Both equally entertaining and well attended. The sleeping communists were trussed up like suckling pigs, carried to the wood chippers and unceremoniously lowered in. 'Bone meal' I think they called it and cattle all the way to the Urals were glad to get it.

Then cages housing curious half human creations were emptied. Everything else of value disappeared into the pockets of nomenclatura (Soviet nobles) in the capital, or perhaps Leningrad. The whole place was sloshed with a solution of water and carbolic acid, locked up and abandoned. 

For eighty years none but the rats and some screaming, disembodied souls knew its name.

Each window was sealed behind chipped green metal shutters, wielded into place. And the ghosts walked in darkness, for no light came within.

No road came this way. No troika passed in winter. Only the wind rushed by.... til one night something happened. A conveyance dropped from the stars. A helicopter came down all black and new and shiny, landing on the roof (that part, reinforced cement) like a huge, nocturnal dragonfly.

Two masked figures, obviously familiar with the place, or at least the blueprints of it, hurried to a skylight and via small, controlled explosions blasted off its metal lid. Then two others with drawn weapons led a third figure to the opening and lowered him in. Within minutes the skylight was resealed and they were gone.

All was as before..... except for the living figure locked within...

But he was not alone...

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The Vampire Russian oligarch, Grigori Usipov
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The VAMPIRE Known as Tomas Forms a Fraternal Group on Penn's Campus... 12/30/13

There were five of them, not counting the vampire. They met in this little cafe place off campus and crowded into  one of those circular, corner booths in the back. Sunday night, after midnight, forty-eight hours (actually a little less) til New Year's Eve. Joint was empty. From the front it looked like they were closed and they were, but the owner was friendly with Doctor Franklin and let them in because of him. The old patriot-reprobate wasn't in attendance. He'd hosted an Eagles-Cowboys party earlier in the evening and was enjoying nightcaps with the last of his guests in his stylish digs beneath the Navy Yard deep within the womb of The Anti-Enchantment Bureau.  I suppose our vampire, friend, Tomas, contacted him. After all, his group, The Junto, was the first good works and mutual aid society, outside the bonds of religion, on Earth. And Tomas was an unnamed member of that. Seventeen twenty seven or so. That's when I think it started. Twenty one he was. Ben Franklin, I mean. The other original members were much older than he, but America's secular prophet (what else was he back then?) was obviously their leader. 

Tomas imagined such an arrangement for his group. Brainy college kids, from somewhat influential backgrounds, willing to met weekly and share what they knew. An earlier local synod, also called 'The Junto' and coincidentally born on Penn's campus too (2011) filled a similar niche. Other groups of educated, young gentlemen throughout the United States and overseas, as well, formed their own chapters. Learn what can be learned. Use it for 'the good.' Help society... and each other. But none of them had a vampire at the core. Though some claimed there was one in Yale's Skull and Bones, but I don't know who he was (is?), or who they helped, or what went on over there, or if that's even true. 

The cafe owner brought out steaming mugs of coffee and toasted sticky buns for the mortals and laid it all out upon the large, round, varnished table. Vampires can tolerate plain, hot tea, so Tomas got a mug of that. And there in that place , down a little side street, snug in the back of a vaguely Early American style cafe The Junto Vampirido was born.

In an effort to speed and facilitate things, please allow me to relate the proceedings in loose, script format.

Tomas - Kevin (the Sturdy Kid) why don't you introduce me to your friends?
Kevin - Sure, Tomas , allow me to present  Max and Jordan and Liam. His name's really William, but in Scotland and Ireland that can be Liam. He likes that, so he changed it. But it's really still William.
Liam shrugs.
Each nods and says 'hi' or 'how you doin'?'  as they shake hands all around. 
Kevin - And, uh,' gentleman,' this is Tomas de Macabea, also known as Jonathon ben Macabi. Noble life-eater, originally from Al-Andaluz. But he's, uh, lived a lot of places since then and in case you don't know, 'life-eater' means vampire... Sorry, Tomas...
Tomas - That's alright. (fidgets) You think the proprietor has any aroma candles? I could use a good sour apple. 
Kevin - I don't know. Wait a second. (yells 'off camera') Yo, Bert! You got any aroma candles?!
Bert - (off camera) Go to hell. I got a can a Glade in the toilet. Does he want that? 
Tomas - No. That's alright.
Bert - (off camera) I can give him some lemon wedges?
But no one answers... They quietly sip their hot beverages.
Skinny Kid (Rob) - You know, Donald Trump once threw up in this booth. I don't know where he was sitting, but he did.
Tomas - Yeah, and I can still smell it. (mumbles) I wish he had that aroma candle.... They he reaches into one of his trademark black leather jackets and takes out a little vial.
Max - What's that?
Kevin - That's his blood.
Max - Yeah, right. F*ck you. Shut up. What is it?
Tomas - My blood. It's a vial of my blood.
Max - That's some free perfume sample shit. My mom has them in her bathroom. No 'blood.'
Kevin - It's blood. And I already drank some last night. Rob too.
Rob - Yep.
Max - You mean Enrique Iglesias over there is really a vampire? (to Tomas) Sorry, dude, but what can I say? 
Kevin - What do you think we're doing here?
Tomas - Do you want to see some proof? 
Max just looks and inches back in his seat..... Tomas reaches out over the table, sublimates his hand down through the wood and feels 'round till he finds something. Then he pulls it out with a big wad of chewing gum in his fingers. The three new comers don't say a word.
Kevin - Yo, Liam, you wanna pass organic chem? (Liam just looks) Drink the blood.
Tomas opens the vial and shakes a drop or two into their mugs. The new comers stare at the contents.
Kevin - (gestures toward the mugs) Drink.
They do, a bit reluctantly, but they do. Tomas looks relieved. Then everybody giggles.
Tomas - (Voice Over) And in that way my dream took shape.... Hey, it's a beginning... 

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Amazing Voice Sings Nessun Dorma On X-Factor..NESSUN DORMA means 'no one is sleeping' and is an unofficial VAMPIRE ANTHEM..plus Tomas tells the college kids his plans.. 12/29/13

They sat there for a while just looking at the fire. No other lights were on. Tomas likes it that way. The skinny kid said - You got any chips or peanuts?... But no one answered.  Edith brought in another bottle, some more of that hard cider. This was 'hard cider week.' You know how the vampires latch onto things. Sturdy kid says - Who's she? Your mother?..... Skinny kid gets a fit of laughing. Tomas just gives him a look. Skinny kid clears his throat and stops.

Tomas says - Am I the first, shall we say 'special' being you've ever come across? ..... Sturdy kid says - No, Eric from Pittsburgh can light his farts. does that count?.... This time Tomas laughs and says - No, that doesn't count.  I just thought some of your friends might like to meet me..... Sturdy kid goes - Are, are you gonna kill them?..... Tomas quietly says - No.... Sturdy kid says - I didn't mean that 'who's she? your mother' crap. Just nervous. You know..... Tomas nods. Then he goes - Do they believe in vampires? Your friends, I mean. The young people at the university...... Skinny kid looks at his buddy. Buddy goes - They believe in aliens. They believe like in chupacabras and stuff. They believe in Bigfoot. I don't know. Guys don't believe in vampires. Chicks do. I don't know...... Tomas says - Well what do you think?...... Skinny kid, who don't talk much goes - I think we're drunk..... Sturdy kid says - Look, dude, maybe you're like a hypnotist. What the f*ck do I know?

With that Tomas leaps from his chair, grabs the Sturdy kid's hand, pulls it toward his mouth and chomps off a pinky finger.... Kid goes - aaaggghhh! SHIT!!! F*CK!!!.... Skinny kid stares, slack jawed and wide eyed....... Then our vampire pulls the digit out of his mouth, bites his tongue, draws blood, licks the oozing end, grabs the kid's hand (from where he held it cradled tight against his chest) and jams that pasty, bloodless sucker back where it came from....... And it 'sticks.' And it's positioned right...... Sturdy kid goes - It burns! It burns! It burns!..... Tomas sucks his own (now blood covered) finger, pulls it out and slowly wipes the dripping tip over the rapidly healing wound..... Kid calms down. Stops wheezing. Studies his mutilated hand.... only now it's not mutilated anymore..... Tomas goes - Edith!..... The witchy-woman friend and housekeeper bustles in from the kitchen, turns on a lamp and offers the kid a plastic canister of baby-wipes. He takes one and gingerly cleans the wound... but there IS no wound. He flexes his fingers, grins, nods and laughs... All is well..... Skinny kid goes - Yo, dude, you got blood stains on your crotch....... Sturdy kid kicks him and goes - Shut up!

Tomas (standing by the fire) says - Please excuse my thoughtless act of wild indiscretion, but I needed your attention. So let me ask you once again. Do YOU believe in vampires? ..... The Sturdy kid nods....... Tomas gestures toward the other one and goes - What about 'Silent Bob?' ..... Skinny kid nods too....... Tomas says - Now I want to meet some of your friends. You think you could arrange it?

More nodding.....

Tomas smiles......

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