And the Russian ballerina-vampirina studied the sixteen year old boy on the sofa next to her and went on...
I learned that I was not the only girl from that place to become a vampire. One or two others suffered the same fate. The Autocracy had need of them. But we were slaves to begin with. Aristocratic girls never went to institutions like that. Rich, landed orphans always found relatives willing to take them in, for whatever wealth they had went with them. They were never left alone. did some become real life 'Cinderellas?' Yes, they did. But when they became of age, appropriate suitors vied for their hands and most escaped into fine, new homes.
Our girls were not so fortunate. Lucky ones were married off to artisans secure in their crafts... barrel makers... haulers... carpenters... men like that. Others became wives to widowers far older than they. Children need nannies after all and bread must be baked. Noble swains bought some girls to be groomed as mistresses. They were kept comfortably enough. But they were not like the demimonde in France. Few accumulated riches of their own. Like pets they were. And when they aged, most wound up as simple domestics... not even head housekeepers. Maids, or drudges, that's what they were.
Any girl children were returned to the somber institution from whence their mothers came. They drowned baby boys. Few families were willing to preserve illegitimate claimants. Occasionally some were given to serf families eager for sons. The lord might favor them with special gifts during the Christmas season. But not always.
This was Imperial Russia. One respected only wealth and power... and long standing wealth and power at that.
Now I progressed. The two women who groomed me in that strange establishment found other tasks for me to do. The cats resumed their regular positions, for I was no longer 'the mouser.' I assisted them in the selling of 'bad' children to the Gypsies. And please don't think such wandering bands were all members of the nation now called 'Roma.' They were not. Most were free, though impoverished peasants from the south, outcast Cossacks, and God knows what. A ruble or two and the 'bad' child disappeared.
Then the vampire woman retreated into silence once again. Her sixteen year old prisoner- guest in his tightie-whiteys straightened up and said - You told me it would be terrible. When does that part start?
She studied a point perhaps twenty two inches before here eyes and said - Be patient. Time is different for night-folk. I will not rush for anyone...... He blinked..... She said - What if I told you that unless you gouged some poor student's eyes out with your thumbs, I would kill you? What if I announced a change of plans and rather than becoming vampire, your skin is to be flayed from all underlying flesh for use as sueded drawstring jewelry pouches, of course after proper tanning and all that? Whether or not you died after the ordeal would be completely left to you. Though I suspect things would go a certain way. So don't be so hasty, underwear-boy... And she smiled, revealing her sharp, pearly fangs.
Underwear-boy shut up. They sat there in the low, flickering candle light, each lost in their own thoughts.
While from another part of the deep, dark compound came the sound of muffled screams...
<more next time>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
click - PEACHES ... to see more episodes of Vampire Wonderland... click - PLUMS ... to join me on Twitter... please leave comments. if you like, tell others. thank you.
The vampirina-ballerina stopped. She did that a lot when she told a story. Just looked off into space and thought. Night-Folk don't feel time the way mortals do. Some get distracted by their own reflection in a big shop window. They'll stand out there, real early in the morning, like two or three o'clock. Won't move or blink, or anything. Sometimes it's not even their own image that gets them. Could be the way a car parked at the curb across the street looks, or the moon, or anything, or a dead cat. Usually happens when they're alone. Not with another of their kind.
Danny watched her for a while. He didn't know what to do. Thought it was a seizure... if vampires have seizures. Then she sighed and he said - Are you alright?..... Elaina (called Kitty for a period in her youth) looked at him and said - What?..... He said - I-I-I saw you staring off like that and got scared.... The vampirina said - Don't be scared.... Then she drifted off again....
The shrouded thing with the silver ball bearing eyes came from God knows where and stood in the doorway. They were in the room with the unplugged, old early fifties television and the mohair sofa. Some fat, yellow candles scattered about gave off a little light.... made the 'eyes' look even worse. Danny didn't move. Was she going to kill him? She killed the other two drama club kids. She killed Jerry and that singer girl. Janis, her name was.... Danny almost started to cry. He just wanted to get out of there. He just wanted to go home.
Then the vampire woman said something in Russian and the shrouded thing left. Without raising her eyes, she whispered - I am not going to kill you, in a manner of speaking...... He didn't hear the 'in a manner of speaking part.' The first seven words were quite enough. He nodded. He was afraid to say anything else. But the preternatural woman in the dirty tu-tu and Playtex Living Bra knew his thoughts and said - No, my young friend. Your existence will go on. I will not send you into the dark-beyond-dark, or wherever it is we go...... You read my mind? - he asked..... No - she answered. I do not read these things after the fact. I feel them as you feel them. The experience is quite different. I can assure you....... Then Danny wanted to find out if she'd let him go home. He didn't know if night-folk feared the cops or not. Circumstances indicated otherwise. But he couldn't do anything, so he sat there in his tightie-whiteys and waited for the vampirina-ballerina to make the next move.
She inhaled and said - I was reliving an episode from my youth. A portentous event is about to unfold and such things always cause me to reflect. ....... Danny, being only sixteen years old and more into dramatics than academics, had no idea what portentous meant, so he just looked.
Elaina went on - I have seen many people leave this life and sometimes I feel it.... Danny said - I-I-I didn't know that..... She said - I am vampire, not a monster..... He couldn't help it. He asked - What about the other two?..... She said - Your friends?..... He nodded... She said - Well, I may not be a monster, but some of my 'associates' are....Danny pressed back into the sofa. He wished he'd never gone to that audition. He wanted to ask about the silver eyed thing, but decided not to.
The ever so slightly intoxicated vampirina (you know they like alcohol) sniffed and said - Old Russia was a very violent place. Czars fried people alive in huge, copper pans. I saw it, not as a mortal, but after. They scream at first. The skin on the back of the head burns off and even the bone begins to smoke. Same with the hips, the heels. Eventually they contract into a fetal position. More than a fetal position. Like a walnut. Like something in a shell. They tremble. Life lasts as long as the heart does. The lungs too, I suppose. And when they wanted to be especially harsh, they'd douse the pathetic remnant with ice water, only to do it again a bit later. They'd shear off children's fingers with large scissor-like things used by metal workers and make their parents watch. A highlight of the spring pogrom season it was. I saw old men held down on the ground, their faces cleaved in two by axe wielding mobs. Did I say faces? No, I am wrong. The blade went clear through, shattering the bone and splitting the brain. Crazed onlookers capered about and danced....
Wait. Please. Wait - Danny said. Why are you telling me this?
She gave him a piteous look and said - To prepare you for what is to come....
Then she retreated back into silence and stared at nothing once again.....
<more next time>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
click - RUSSIA ... to see more Vampire Wonderland ... click - MUSCOVY ... to join me on Twitter... please leave a comment. if you like, tell your friends. each post does not stand alone but is part of a longer story arc. scroll up or down to see the whole thing. thank you for any support you're willing to give me.
Vampires were a known 'commodity' in Old Russia. They'd been bringing them up since Byzantine times and from the Ottomans after that. Indeed, up till Soviet times, the Black Sea city of Odessa, quite a cosmopolitan place and in feeling more akin to Italy or Greece than Romonov lands, maintained a brisk trade in night-folk and other exotics.
Among the Turks, most had the status of slaves, but very pampered slaves, under the protection of great pashas and beys who used them to dispatch enemies and kill revolutionaries. Long time readers are familiar with that, since we've highlighted the famed vampire-training-academies of Topkapi before. The imperial palace, actually a series of jewel-box residences, pleasure domes and administrative offices contained many strange installations. Some far more unusual than a night-folk school. One evening we'll tell you about the flesh sculptors, who created freaks for noble collectors and sold them all over Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. What a sad business that was. And yes, it is possible to create a 'chicken woman,' or a 'chicken man.'
Elaina Buhkovina, our vampire-ballerina, fell under the tutelage of a French vampirina and a Turkish import. French expatriates wound up in Russia all the time, Italians too. They were viewed as international sophisticates. Many of the women became ladies in waiting to the Czaritzas and the males often served as imperial advisors in such matters as architecture, viniculture, foreign finance and military training. You see, for those with breeding and money, Russia was an opulent, worldly playground. But for the subjugated classes, for they whose very names had no meaning, life was endless toil. Oh, there was a small business class. In the eighteenth century most entrepreneurs were sons of former aristocratic servants or semi-acknowledged, 'illegitimate' offspring of the selfsame class. Most other souls were serfs, or ostensibly 'free' peasants (especially in 'Little Russia') with superficial rights that did not really mean very much, for any boyar (noble) could crush them, if he so wished.
One evening the two vampirinas, the one's who tutored Elaina, attended a little recital at the ecole du ballet in the Winter Palace. They were very well known, since they'd done this thing before. When the French one presented the dancing mistress a letter from Prince Usipov (an early progenitor of our own Russian, vampire oligarch, Grigori Usipov) directing her to give the exotic duo a girl they might instruct, her gaze fell on little Elaina, for she already had a dreamy air and her baba was reputed to be a witch.
Now the vampire lessons took place on Saturdays and Sundays, since there was no dance school then. A man came for her. He was a retired member of the constabulary and still wore the old, blue coat with the silver buttons. Every Friday afternoon he'd rap on the door, wait for Elaina to exit, take her hand and walk with her to the place where the vampirinas lived, a strange, narrow, though well set up residence on a skinny, little street behind Perfumery Lane.
They'd already set her to a task... not exactly blood-drinker oriented, but designed to foster her hunting instincts and a willingness to kill. She was their 'mouser,' charged with keeping the place free of unwelcome tiny guests. They gave her what looked like a small baseball bat, an old little shovel and set her to it. At first she cried, but it soon became a game... two kopecks a head... And they expected to see heads. That's what the rusty sharp edge of the shovel was for....
'Kitty,' they called her Kitty, for she was just like a little cat...
And so it began.....
<more next time>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
click - MEOW ... to see more Vampire Wonderland... click - HEAD COUNT ... to join me on Twitter... please comment. if you like, tell your friends, thank you.
They say the dead have no sense of time. Even more than that. They say time is just an illusion. The omniverse is a swirling morass of infinite points in space and their accompanying occurrences. And the thing is, every point in space-time occupies every possible point in space-time. Everything is everyplace... Just like it says. The dead just float in it. Perhaps that's what the ether is?
To be dead for an instant is the same as being dead for all eternity. I'm not talking about what goes on after death. We're not addressing God here. He may very well retrieve righteous souls from the bubbling pot and deposit them safely upon another shore. And even if He does not, eternity still feels but an instant, though one that never ends
But what about ghosts? What are they? To that I must say they are not monsters or frightful creatures from gothic novels. They are just people, devoid of any material presence, but people. They are the true essence of what we are. Call it energy, or spirit, or soul. They are what is left when the great engine of physical life stops running.
Students of these things say they separate from the ruins of their bodies soon after chemical reactions and synapses between neurons cease. Is that a shock, or a blessing? I don't know.
Could be the ghost has a choice to make. Do they flee this realm, or remain for a while? Do they stay with the living, or catch up to those who've gone before?
Those fortunate enough to experience familial spirits consider it a gift. They know 'life' in its truest form goes on. They've seen beyond and that can be a wonderful thing.
Troublesome hauntings are rare. Restless spirits rattle the china and tap the floorboards precisely because they are not acknowledged, especially by those they love. So it's best to recognize their presence. They only want to go on.
Long term 'hauntings' (if that is the right word)...spirit presences that last beyond the time when all earthy contemporaries have already passed over too, usually involve spirits more attached to surroundings than people. Sometimes they never had much family, but loved their home, or workplace, or various vistas encountered in life. So they walk the halls of old apartments, or visit the offices where they were employed. Now these spirits can become intrusive if they think the 'living' fail to value these sites. So it's always prudent to consider the feelings of everyone, whether in the flesh, or not.
Now we will get back to our regular story, but I saw an episode of 1st Look, that comes on after SNL and being October and Halloween and all, they aired segments about hauntings, one of which involved the centuries old, vast, semi-ruined, dungeon-like, Eastern State Penitentiary right here in Philadelphia.... But there's one ghost story they skipped...
It happened a few years ago. They touched up the place a bit to ready it for tourists. The ancient decrepitude was maintained. New wood and steel beams were carefully installed to preserve the structural integrity of the building (really a labyrinth of discreet wings and constructions, rather like an old, European castle). Near the end of the project, painters were brought in to artistically restore assorted nooks and corners without obfuscating the (very early) nineteenth century originals. They worked in dim, forgotten passageways and maze-like spidery cellars, dabbing somber color amongst the cracks, chips and old, brown (quite genuine) bloodstains. They'd talk quietly, the painters I mean, but sometimes near quitting time, sad muffled voices would join them. They always attributed these utterances to crews working 'round the corner,' or on the other side of the wall. But the walls were very thick and the passages very long.
One night, as the others left, a lone painter remained to get the job done. He toiled at the end of a long interior hallway. There were some old, iron doors along its length, but all were securely locked. The lights hanging from the twelve foot high barrel ceiling had yet to be connected and the solitary artist worked with a mechanic's light plugged into the one working outlet. There were no windows... not even traffic noises...
And then it happened. The bulb in the mechanic's 'trouble' light fizzled and went out. Complete solid darkness... Nothing... The painter, who'd been working up toward the ceiling, clambered down his ladder and attempted to find a replacement bulb. He tried to make as little noise as possible. No one likes to announce their presence in such eerie circumstances.
But he began to hear footsteps... far off... at the other end of the hallway... Shambling footsteps, as a prisoner in chains might take.... He froze... The only muscles moving within his body were those necessary for circulation and respiration. Maybe he blinked, but that's all. Still, the footsteps drew closer. He heard breathing... raspy wheezing and every so often a low mumbled word. Then whatever it was started banging on the heavy iron doors as it passed. 'It' knew where things were. 'It' could 'see' him.
He prayed. The painter prayed. But the walls wouldn't vanish and he could not escape.
Then it was upon him. He could smell the rotted breath. He could feel the tangible presence of some hulking thing there before him. He pressed against the wall and whispered 'no, no, no,' as he slid down to the cold, cement floor
Whatever it was reached down and grabbed him, pinning his arms to his body. He whimpered. The thing roared and the sound echoed from the old, crumbling plaster. Then is smashed his head against the wall and that was it...
They found him in the morning sprawled on the cold cement. But there was a thick smear of paint and blood tracing a stripe from high up near the ceiling all the way down to the floor.... and the bulb in the trouble light was on.
He lived. The painter lived. They interviewed him. The story was everywhere. All the papers had it. Tourists flocked to the gray, artistically crumbling 'castle.' Psychic researchers came too, some for their own purposes, some to learn the truth.
And that's it too.....
What have you seen? What have you heard? Please comment. Share. I'm sure we'd all love to read them all.
'Life' goes on.....
<more next time>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
click - CHIMES ... to see more Vampire Wonderland ... click - WHISPERS ... to join me on Twitter... if you like this post, please tell your friends. thank you for any support you're willing to give.
The next day, if it was a day, they brought me hard boiled eggs and caviar. Never had caviar before. Good actually. And there must have been some kind of drug dissolved in the juice they gave me, because ... well, I just didn't care about anything. Escaping? Who the hell cared? Being imprisoned in a dark, cellar closet? Oooh, cozy! I can't even tell you what kind of juice it was. It was cold and sweet and vaguely fruity. Could have been Kool Aid, but I don't think they'd have given me Kool Aid. Czarist Russians did have standards, you know.
A bit after that, the silver eyed 'man' came back and led me to a small tiled room that was apparently for showering. He turned on the water (comfortably warm) and stood there as I washed. There was a fat, sputtering candle in a far corner so I could see. And you're probably wondering how that ballerina-vamperina from last night got battery powered candles back in nineteen seventy one. But there were a lot of anomalies like that. To be truthful, I still can't explain them all. I have theories. I can tell you what I think. They tell me the 'burden' (vampirism) settles differently on each and every one of us. Some sublimate with ease. Others manipulate matter. Elferinos are natural fliers. While a few... a very few... can smear themselves through time. And I've only heard of two or three. One saw the Exodus... another the burning of Saint Joan. That's all I can tell you. I live a fairly independent existence, vampire speaking. But some rules I will not break. Catch me sometime when I'm in my absinthe ... maybe then... maybe.
After my ablutions, the silver eyed thing gave me a big, thick bath sheet. I dried off, expecting to be led back to my prison, however my guard threw me a paper bag containing two packages. One held three pairs of tightie-whities, the other had three matching t-shirts. The shrouded figure said - Get dressed. I pulled on one of the shirts and snapped on a pair of the briefs. The 'thing' quickly gathered up the opened packages and put them back into the paper bag. He scrunched it closed and motioned toward the door, then shepherded me back into the darkness.... More passages...whether the same ones, or different I can't say. We came to a room lit by the screen of a small, black and white television. It must have been twenty years old even then, a twelve inch picture in a wooden console, square, cloth covered speaker at the bottom, two chunky, black, plastic knobs, one on each side. The Russian ballerina sat on an equally vintage mohair sofa, chuckling at a morning rerun of The Dick Van Dyke show, wearing the same dusty tu-tu as before, though topped by an off-white Playtex bra. And if you question the cadence of my speech, or the words that I use... If they sound wrong for a sixteen year old boy, please remember I am night-folk for almost forty five years, which makes me officially sixty one. And as I've already stated, drama club kids were different to begin with.
She left me standing there, the Russian dancer, I mean, till commercial, then gestured for me to be seated. She took a long, deep swig from a bottle of Stoli, before passing it to me. I took a neat, little sip and passed it back. She moved closer and began to kiss me. Then she tickled me till I laughed and began to kiss her back.
But I couldn't help but wonder, if they had electricity for the old television, why no lights... why no lamps? Then I noticed the cord, wound round toward the front of the console... It wasn't plugged in.
She saw that I'd noticed, pulled back and whispered - Do you want to see my home?... I nodded. What else could I do? She stroked my hand, turned to face the screen and sighed. Then she trembled. Her eyes rolled back in her head. The television screen went dark for a few heartbeats. You know how those old TV's were. There was a white horizontal line in the middle, then a bright, white dot, then nothing, till the screen began to quicken with an image... a house made from rough, stones... plain and somber... maybe larger than an ordinary house, with two white marble steps leading up to a darkly painted door. There's a brass plaque off to the side. The inscription is in Cyrillic. I couldn't read it. But the door opened and a woman who might have been a nun, or a nurse, led twenty little girls out onto the street, each dressed in a dark uniform.... long skirts topped by long cloaks, buckled shoes.... It was summer and the new capitol of St. Petersburg shone under a temporarily benevolent sun, as the girls of the foundling home went out for a morning walk. Great carriages rolled passed, pulled by matched pairs. Old women sold flowers. Tall, spruce officers from elite regiments trod the streets with an entitled air. An ancient peasant did southern, Cossack dances on the corner. People threw coins.
In a hoarse small voice, with her eyes still rolled back, the Russian ballerina said - Can you see it? Can you see it? ... I told her that I could. And she whispered - Gut... gut... gut...
Then she showed me more.....
I could not look away.....
<more next time>
click FOUNDLINGS ... to see more Vampire Wonderland... click COSSACKS ... to join me on Twitter... please comment. if you like, tell others. thank you.
The teenaged night-fiend, Donny, continues the tale of his second nativity-----
We kept going. All the while I could taste the rancid breath of the strange, silver eyed thing behind me. The passage was dark... beyond dark... the blackness was solid and inviolate. We went down. Then the floor and walls began to curve, like a great spiral corkscrew boring deep into the earth. We come into a room. I cannot see it, but I can feel it. The movement of the air seems different. And a voice... a woo-mahn's voice says - Dat eez all, Vasili. Now go f#ck yourself. Go go go go... With that, the strange, shrouded, ball bearing eyed thing behind me turned and scampered back through the narrow passage. Four heartbeats later I saw the room illuminated after a fact by the flickering light from four or five thick candles. She wore an old tattered tu-tu and nothing else. Believe me. I could see. One shapely leg was cocked over the arm of a throne-like chair, as she slouched against the opposite side. And the low, creamy light from the candles was adequate enough to show me the truth of it all. But the only thing I could think to say was - H-h-how did you do that?.... Do vat, mahnchik? - she said .... Light the candles - I said. Was it magic?...... Miss Tu-tu chuckled and went - No, my beautiful, new play thing. They are flameless, battery powered pieces of crap from deh Walmart, merely timed to 'ignite' simultaneously... I nodded and went - Oh..... She said - Drop it deh blanket. I vahnt to get luke at you..... So I did and stood there bare and compliant. After all, If I was ever to leave and return to the drama club, that tu-tu lady would probably have something to do with it.... She straightened up, sat correctly and adjusted her breasts. Though I don't recall their needing any fine tuning, or re-alignment. Everything looked OK to me. Like a ballerina plucked from an old music box, she was, though perhaps thrown behind a dusty sofa and allowed to vegetate for a few years.
I could tell that she liked me and said - Please, madam, who are you?.... And without even missing a beat, she said - I ahm first dancer, Elaina Buhkovena, late of Mariinsky Ballet. And you ahr 'Danny.' I know because ve went through your pockets, ven you had pockets. Turn around. I vahnt to see your fundament... How educated and well spoken she was! Naturally, I obliged and in a quiet voice, she said - Wery gud wery gud wery gud. Almost like 'ballerino.'....... I wasn't sure what that meant. But I had an idea, 'cause I'd seen the movie SO FINE on basic cable and remembered the ballet sequence.
Then she patted her thigh and said - Come. Seet awn my lep.....So I did. Her flesh was firm and strong. I didn't know it then, but all night-folk, all vampires have bodies like that. I thought maybe ballerinas and 'ballerinos,' because of all the dancing and exercises and all. What did I know. Failed two auditions to be a Von Trapp kid and in the late sixties-early seventies that was a very big thing.
She had angel hair, long and curly, like a cloud. And she proceeded to tell me secrets, while stroking my body and nipping at my ears. I heard about Old, Imperial Russia and her days at The Academy of Classic Dance, (housed in an obscure wing of The Winter Palace itself). I heard about the clean, new, Northern Venice that was St. Petersburg. Well, in the eighteenth century it was clean and new.... Dashing, aristocratic, cavalry officers.... Presentations in the private, jewel-box theater for Empress Catherine and her many guests.... Champagne breakfasts with balalaika orchestras composed of well trained serfs. For a while she just babbled, sipping from a glass of vodka. Then she gestured toward a pile of satin comforters on the cold, concrete floor. We positioned ourselves upon them and had relations... After a bit we had relations again. That was her word for it. She loved her relations. Upon completion, as we lay there, I felt emboldened and asked what happened to my friends from the drama club, (who were abducted with me). I said - Where is Jerry?... She said - You mean de boy?... I nodded... She said - Deht... I sighed and asked - And what happened to Janis?.... She said - You mean de singair one? You mean de girl?... I nodded some more... And once again she shrugged and said - Deht....
I whispered - oh.... My heart was pounding. She HAD to feel it. I'd be next. I was sure I was next. Any minute that strange shrouded creature, the one she sent off to f#ck himself would come back. He MUST be done by now.
But the strange being did not come back. And the Russian ballerina who remembered the year seventeen sixty two went - shhh shhh shhh, as she began to kiss me where I had never been kissed
And suddenly I did not care who was 'deht' and who was not....
(so ends the first encounter)
<more next time>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
click OLD MUSCOVY ... to see more Vampire Wonderland... click MARIINSKY THEATER ... to join me on Twitter... please leave comment. if you like story, tell you friend. thank you.
The cabbie offered us 'sweets.' He said 'sweets' not candy or anything like that and I think he was Anglo-British. Looked like Englebert Humperdink . Since the container had yet to be opened we each took one. Rather like Altoid mints, I think they were. We thanked him and watched the crowds squeeze through Fifteenth Street on their way toward the big subway stop by City Hall. They looked soaked and quite eager to ride the escalators under ground. Some would undoubtedly buy umbrellas and hot coffee in the below street level shopping concourse. It ran for blocks.
Then the windshield wipers began to beat a quick rhythm. I suppose they'd been doing that since we got in, but whatever was in those mints started to work . We were drugged and that was it. The people.. the shops... the Christmas lights.. the rain disappeared, as a deep, dark cloud enveloped us. Janis, the singer girl, was in the middle. She fell 'asleep' against me. That's all I remember.
I awoke in a room, or a cell. It was in a basement. There was a window, a very small one up by the ceiling, maybe sixteen inches long and six inches wide. The glass was very thick and it was nailed shut. It was dark out... nothing to see save a light... a streetlamp or more likely a security light pinned up on the moldering brick wall of the building across the alley. But a bit of the glow fell into my prison. The floor was painted concrete. The walls were cinderblock and the door, though pressed like wood, with recessed panels, was metal, a dark, almost black, charcoal colored metal. I could make out the spot where a door knob once was, though it was gone now and plugged with a round piece of iron. I couldn't budge it... the door, I mean. So I sat on the cot (the place was much like a jail cell, but minus that little toilet-sink thing.). My heart was pounding, but I didn't scream... I didn't call out. I was too scared. Where were the others? Were they in 'rooms' like this too? How long had I been there? My parents. My family. Oh God. I pressed myself back into a corner and hugged my knees. I was numb, or pretended to be.
The cold from the cinderblock wall drained the heat from my body. I began to shiver. There was a rough wool blanket folded by the foot of the cot. I lifted an edge. It smelled clean... a bit of a mothball scent, but clean. At least there wouldn't be bugs with the naphtha and all. I wrapped it around me, laid down, curled up and drifted off. Only my nose peeked out from the makeshift cocoon. Then I slept, as the drug was obviously still in me.
Someone was in the cell. I opened my eyes to see a stooped, shrouded figure rush out and lock the door. It was still dark. Perhaps I'd just dozed off for a short while? Perhaps a whole day had passed. I didn't know. I'm guessing I was out for an hour or so, because I hadn't peed yet. There was a jar standing on the floor, an old, glass, mayonnaise jar with a screw on metal lid. It was filled with what looked like a thick, meaty, split pea soup. The outside of the jar was still warm. I unscrewed the lid, dipped in a finger and sniffed... tasted a bit too. I was hungry and drank it down. Then I reached in and scooped out the thick part. After that, I cried, not so much for myself, but for my family.
Eventually, I had to pee. There was no drain in the floor. I looked. But I found a white, enamel pot under the cot... My toilet. What else could I do? Then I laid there and thought who would they send for the slops?
Daylight came. I knew it because the tiny bit of light sneaking in through the small window grew a bit less feeble. The thick pane of glass was obviously smoked, or darkened in some way.
Soon after, I heard the sound of a key. Someone was opening the door. I heard wheezing. I heard coughing. Who, or whatever it was hummed a little song. I didn't recognize it.... Then a person came in... That's it. I can't tell you if it was a man or a woman.. You know how some people are neutral... thick skinned.... mousy hair.... pouchy jowls....dirty nails? Well, this individual was like that. Wore a long, worn, black terry cloth bathrobe too. Don't ask me what that represented. I have no idea.
It raised its head and 'looked' at me. But in place of eyes there were dull, silvery, metal orbs. I saw them glint in the minimal light.
Well... scratch 'traditional' kidnapping.
The thing chuckled ominously and said - Come wit' me..... I froze. Then it added. If you fail to cooperate... if you frustrate their intentions, they will simply kill you... Then it chuckled some more..... It gestured toward the opened door. Beyond lay only blackness.
I got off the cot and walked through the doorway. The strange thing followed. I could feel it's breath, as it said - keep moving....
I carefully made my way down a dark, stone walled passage that seemed to go on forever...
<more next time>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
click <<o> <o>> ... to see more Vampire Wonderland episodes... click TALK ... to join me onTwitter... please comment. if you're willing to help, tell people. thank you.
Posts
