Fortified by the blood, Tomas slid under a door into a dark service-way. All great houses have them. Arteries enabling the staff to soundlessly flow through the manor without being seen until necessary. Smooth slate floors... rather inexpensive marble wainscoting and pale grey polished plaster above that...although at this hour shrouded in complete darkness. Tomas proceeded with caution, quite the necessity when only two inches tall. He couldn't rely on vampiric abilities. This universe wasn't his universe and that caused some sort of space/time interference. Thus his usual talents flickered in and out... magical 'static' if you will. Now there were doors along the way. One led to the housekeeper's office. Musty, old upholstered pieces from elsewhere in the property.... Another fronted a storeroom for pots and pans. Tomas didn't need much. Momentary flickers of enhanced olfactory ability provided more than enough information.... a metallic scent... sachet.... onions and potatoes.... Ah! onions and potatoes... That must be the kitchen... There, up ahead.... Dim, watery light leaked out from beneath the door. He squeezed under. Apparently this one was hung with more precision. A tiny bit of light washed in through the huge wall of windows.... leaded glass, from counter height to ceiling. Odd that this world had a moon so much like our own. He looked about. How vast this space was, more akin to a catering hall than a private home... Neat, hexagonal, white, tiled floors... Avenues of drawers and cupboards topped with cold, flat, granite. He knew that, because bull-nose edges protrude a bit and he could see them, Then he smelled it... a human tang... strong, salty, dense and sulfurous. He sniffed. Where was it coming from? Scents echo in cold, hard rooms like this. But as he progressed, it grew stronger. There! Up above... on the counter... Live humans... But how would he get there? Tomas tried to dig his nails into a cupboard door. Perhaps he could climb up that way. Yet the lacquer was too hard. Then he saw it... a broom... an old style, rolled, corn broom, such as Cinderella would have used.... carelessly forgotten, it leaned against the edge of the counter maybe a hundred and forty steps down. He ran to it, a two inch tall mountaineer, in the land of the giant collies (and Alsatians and Husky-Wolfie things). It looked rustic. Probably made on the estate. But the broomstick looked smooth, though not too smooth... easy to climb, once passed the witchy looking business end. He scrambled up. Then he felt it move. Not really move, but shift a little. The broomstick, being round was sensitive. He'd have to go slow... and he did, inching up through the silvery darkness. He stepped off. The counter top was cold and empty.... everything in its place... nothing lying about. Aristocratic establishments were like that. But up ahead, against the tiled wall, sheltered from the moonlight by overhanging cupboards, was a fish tank... or a terrarium... smooth, clear sides, rectangular in shape, with black metal seams. Tomas ran over, put his face up against the glass, shading his eyes with his hands, the better to see through the reflective surface, and peered in. A thick layer of excelsior (shredded paper) covered the bottom, perhaps as high as his knees, or a bit above his knees. The human smell was so strong. He rapped on the glass... Nothing... He rapped again... This went on about four or five times.... Then they started to move. There, back near the far side, the shredded bedding began to shift. Heads peeked out. Tomas saw them. Scared, sad eyes looked back, glistening in the shadows. He couldn't be one of them and they knew it. He was clothed. Humans never wore clothes. Where would they get them? How would they make them? That's what excelsior was for... burrow in and huddle together. It worked... sort of. And Tomas remembered the dinner. Had to be eight hundred humans. Where'd they all come from? There couldn't be more than maybe a hundred and ten in there. No one moved. Those in the tank knew. They knew what would happen. No one ever came back. This was the end. They'd never see another night again... or even another afternoon... Breakfast fare, they were. Destined for the griddle... Scrambled with eggs. How fine and crunchy their bones were. Huge canine muzzles had no problem with that. Tomas wanted to talk to them. He didn't know the particulars. He couldn't sense their thoughts. He didn't know their language. OK, maybe he'd drain a few. That's how he was now. But, if they could communicate, some would probably live, at least for a while... If they could get off the counter.... That's when he felt it. That's when he heard the CRASH, as the broom slid down to the floor. Every little head ducked back into the bedding and he was left there, exposed and alone on the wide, cold, stone expanse... But what else heard the noise?... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ click SIZZLING to taste earlier Vampire Wonderland episodes. click BREAKFAST to join me on Twitter. please comment. thank you.
Tomas saw the dogs, huge, acculturated, rather human-like things dressed as Late Victorian or Edwardian gentlefolk, but with full, somewhat fox-like tails protruding through all the velvet and worsted wool fabric. Actually, he only saw their backs and even then he couldn't see what was happening on the table. But he was able to discern tiny screams and cries. The beasts were at their dinner, dining and conversing with upper crust ease. Dog arms reached toward the center of the damask covered surface. For a moment he caught sight of a long, tapering metallic thing.... Like a chopstick, though it didn't have a mate. But what were they eating? And who was making all the fuss? There was some sort of drapery hanging behind the potted plant. Perhaps he could climb it and disappear into the foliage? Though it's hard for tiny hands to find purchase. He couldn't crush the fabric. How would be hold on? But the bottoms and edges were fringed, long, twisted, dark green, silk things. One edge was maybe two body lengths away. The porcelain planter still hid him. He's have to chance it. And based on the giant doggie slurping and chomping sounds he heard, a little shrimp sized 'human' thing shouldn't draw much attention. So he quietly stepped over, grabbed hold and went up. His vampire strength served him well. Soon he looked down over the rim onto carefully tended rich brown earth. He jumped over and scrambled into the greenery. From there it was an easy climb up to a point where he could peek out and see the table. Then he knew... Apparently, our misplaced 'human' thing was not alone. Huge mounds of frantic, swarming, naked people occupied three immense silver, or pewter bowls set into crater-like indentations down the center of the dining table. They desperately struggled, trying to avoid the long, thin, pointed poles. But the dog things didn't care. Clams don't want to be shucked. Crabs don't want to be boiled. That's how it is. And humans don't want to be impaled. As a vampire, Tomas could not look away. Sometimes a terrified little person managed to claw up out of the hellish mess, attempting to hide amidst the tableware and crockery (condiments, you know) scattered about the vast formal plain. A canine diner would momentarily stop conversing in that yodel-like way they have, reach out and brush them back in. Limbs broke. Heads cracked. Skin ripped. Domestic staff scraped out all the dead ones after for the koi pond. Sometimes left over live ones went in too. And that's how they ate. Stab a sentient morsel. Maybe dip it in some sauce. Bring the tip to the mouth. Draw off the meat 'tween the teeth and chew it up. If the dining pick didn't finish them the teeth would. Average dog ate eighty, or more at a sitting. God knows what's in the pantry. Maybe they raise them there? Afterwards the dog-folk licked scoops of flavored ice, topped by some sort of intoxicant, from shallow, crystal, stemware. A few chewed savory, biscuit things. Then the males went off to another part of the mansion, while the females retired to an adjacent room for some sort of table game. Footmen came in to clean up. A few humans were still alive. They toyed with them, pretending not to see, as they raced 'cross the damask looking for shelter. But there was no escape and all were thrown into the chill, dark waters of the koi pond. Tomas waited for maybe two or three hours, til the house grew quiet. Then he carefully leaned out over the rim of the pot, grabbed the fringe and climbed down, making for what he assumed was the kitchen, or at least the passage that led there. He found one crazed human ( a male, I think) trembling behind a chair leg in the dark. How he got down there is anyone's guess. The man looked to Tomas for help. Clothed humans were few and far between. The man babbled something in a whispery patois. Tomas pretended to understand and moved to comfort the terrified being. But he was hungry too, so he ripped open the throat and drank up all the blood. Then the corpse ignited into a cool, blue flame (as victims always do). In the morning some chamber maid or other would find a small, greasy stain. Ashes and water clean that, you know. Tomas watched the flame go out, then continued on his way... <more next time> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ click HERE to discover over fifteen hundred Vampire Wonderland episodes. click THERE to join me on Twitter. please comment. thank you.
I know we've visited this territory before. But I've wanted to go back there a good long while. There is a saga on a terraformed Mars arc already up, EL RANCHO TEXACO. But I want to do the early days. Similar in its way to John Ford's Cavalry Trilogy.
Imagine 'first families' known as 'troopers' after the Blue Coats of America's West. And whenever they get together to remember the old days, somebody stands, puts his hand to his heart and calls 'TROOPERS!' Then all chairs push out, everyone rises and they go into their song, a rousing version of SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON with whoops and 'Rebel' yells at the end.
That's how the movie starts. Then we fade back to a large 'estancia' out toward the bad lands... the storied La Polva Rosa (Red Dust) seat of the Texaco Family.... and the story begins.
Please watch the video up above. Listen to the anthem. Close your eyes and see a time that very well may come...
If you like, Google EL RANCHO TEXACO by Billy Kravitz and jump in. Scroll around. Find the first episode and explore. But the next 'visit' centers on an earlier era.... an almost mythological time when legends are born and dynasties too.
The title says it all. I wanted to include a video right here. I forced myself to look at some, but they're too shocking. So I'll leave it up to you. Search videos of huge tarantulas brutally killing prey... if you're not prone to nightmares. The choice is yours. Tomas is the prey and the nine foot long, thick legged arachnid thing is the hunter. Here's how it played out... The thing lunged. Tomas ran. Whatever part of his vampiric nature carried over to this strange place kicked in and he 'disappeared' behind a huge (to him) thick support beam. But spiders are fast too. They don't move like you, or I. Arthropod muscular contractions are sharp and instantaneous.... Ever watch a dinner-plate spider devour a bird? Imagine what that poor feathered thing goes through, locked in a hard, cold embrace more hellishly alien and inhuman than any vampire. Tomas flattened himself against the rough wood surface, straining to see in the near black, crawl space gloom. He heard the muffled footfalls. He felt them. But where was it? He couldn't tell. The dirt surface diffused each impact, like a soft, quiet echo coming from every place at once. But he smelled the dried blood scabbed all over its body... a sick, rancid bacon-like aroma gleaned from the piercings of other tiny, 'human' victims. Strange meat in this part of the omniverse. So he ran. He just took off and ran, zig-zagging from one support to the next, like a pachinko game in hell. But in this not quite mortal, not quite vampire state Tomas gave off heat and spiders are sensitive to warmth. So it got him in a corner and that was it. The beast just stood there. Thin tendrils of vapor snaking up from tiny 'nostrils' running down the sides of its huge hairy abdomen. Each fang danced independently, as the mechanistic brain picked an angle of attack. Exactly two and a half nano seconds later it jumped, pinning him 'neath its body in a twitching, eight legged cage. Tomas froze, as it quickly pivoted left and right, deciding how to do it. Stiff, quill-like hairs raked his face and snagged his skin. Then it hit. The left fang cracked two ribs and pierced a lung. The right fang tore his stomach... twin spears of hard, needle sharp, keratin, opened his body, freeing the blood. How odd for a vampire to end like that. But he was a vampire. He was. And he tapped into the ether, drawing in its energy, focusing his powers for one explosive thrust. Then he instantaneously rocketed up through the beast, pulverizing its 'head.' as he sublimated toward freedom. What was left of the giant arachnid quivered before him. Arthropod bodies survive quite a while without a head. There was life in the old girl yet. So Tomas threw himself on the pulsating abdomen, crunched through the loathsome surface and drank in what he found. Animal blood is not human blood. And vampires cannot live on it indefinitely. But at times like this any food would do. Then he pulled his head from the dead monstrosity, picked bits of shell from his hair and cleaned his body with handfuls of the coarse, sand-like dirt. After a short rest, lying stretched out upon the cool surface, he looked up toward the barely visible sub-flooring, focused his abilities once again and sublimated through, into the rooms where the dog things lived. From a hidden spot behind a potted plant (a giant oak to him) he saw them at their meal, piercing live and screaming others like himself with long, silver skewers, which they deftly plucked clean with their sharp canid teeth... <more next time> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ click DOGS to sniff 'round all other Vampire Wonderland episodes. click DINNER to join me on Twitter. please comment. thank you.
Tomas was in another place. His experience was quite different and the monstrously enlarged, canine creatures he encountered were another thing all together. First of all, it took him two days and nights, skittering along the icy, huge ruts left by the immense sleigh to reach their destination, a large, country, manor house as might be found in UNCLE VANYA or novels like it.
I don't know why he wasn't menaced by proportionately accurate wildlife along the way. Perhaps something of his fundamental vampire nature oozed out and repelled them. I mean the stegosaurus sized squirrel and possum-like things watching from the 'Parting Of The Red Sea' sized hedgerows. But he found a small, break in the mortar between two bricks in the foundation and and squeezed through, dropping down onto a dirt surface roughly eighteen inches below. To him, that was like nine feet. Fortunately this part of the manor house didn't have a full basement or he wouldn't have been able to do that. Crawl spaces were easier. Tomas ran over and scaled a support beam. Splinters were like daggers, but vampirinos are by nature careful, so after a bit he came up under a seam in the subflooring, maybe one eighth of an inch wide to the giant canines within, but more or less equal to four and a half inches in his world. So he stuck his ear up into the space and listened..... Cutlery, there was the sound of cutlery..... fine tableware against costly china. And conversation. He heard conversation. Not human voices. Of course they were louder. Maybe not much louder, just deeper and more resonant. And with a lilting , or a rolling sound, like when Springer Spaniels vocalize. To a human, even a vampire human, the effect was positively hypnotic. But he couldn't get through. The seam was too tight and the actual hardwoods above the subflooring made it impossible. So he climbed down and searched for another way.... That's when it saw him.....
Everything in this world was larger than our world (and by 'world' I mean universe) by a factor of thirty six. Boudoir lamps were fifty two feet high and cigars were long as Cadillacs. The thing that focused on Tomas was over sized too.... an arachnid analog nine feet long... a 'vampire' of another kind, with black, shiny fangs like carving knives. He could see the eyes glinting in the dark, eight onyx paperweights, arranged in a row above the oral cavity. This monstrous depravity had no qualms about sucking the life from him. There was nothing paranormal about it. Just a loathsome, mechanistic 'bug' reeking of sulfur and mold and God knows what else, out for an easy meal.... To completely drain a vampire is to kill him.
And Tomas didn't want to die again.
So while dogs as tall as campaniles dined on live, bare, little humans, struggling to climb from a previously warmed, crater-like, communal, silver bowl, a similar drama played out down below. Only instead of skewering each wriggling tidbit on long, thin, pointed picks, the stiff haired, hard carapaced nightmare used its fangs... not to mention the two, sharp claws at the ends of its eight, manic legs.
It jumped. Tomas flinched.
The chase was on...
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Tomas wandered through the dark, mossy cemetery. The air was cool and damp, with just a bit of old bone smell around the edges. Vampires like that smell, because it's indicative of long forgotten sepulchres and silent, black retreats. True, our hero formerly sheltered in more commodious surroundings. But times change and so did he. A tiny rabbit hopped along the path. If he'd taken the time for a closer look, Tomas would have seen its human face.... neither male, nor female, or young, or old... just human. But he did, absentmindedly begin to follow. And that's when things began to change. Trees stretched up toward the stars. Stars grew large as camel eyes. He could see monstrous flares around their edges. And the strangely white, pre-dawn clouds arced out toward Byzantium. Then the world grew smaller still. Pebbles became mountains and garden slugs swallowed kingdoms. The very atoms in the air pelted him like sleet. Next came light... a multitude of incandescences, issuing forth from every point and trailing off to nowhere. Soon even that disappeared and he hung suspended in a charcoal grey void, more vast (in its way) than all the Pleiades, a trillion times over. Seconds equaled eons and eternity but a sigh. But Tomas just breathed. He existed. Is this death? - he thought. Is it Nirvana? .... And then he really didn't think at all. After a time, if there was 'time,' bells began to jingle in the distance and he realized he was falling, an infinitely tiny singularity upon a snowflake dancing through a foreign sky... It landed on an endless red, lacquered plain, the side of a sleigh gliding through a snow covered parkland. There were passengers in the sleigh. He heard their thunderous voices. They laughed and made jokes, but he didn't know the words. Then he slid off, tumbling down to the surface. By the time he stopped, he'd grown, perhaps to the size of a fruit fly. The sleigh was but a distant thing streaking toward the horizon, which in this white and snowy land was, at best, an indistinct approximation. But another sleigh, pulled by not-quite horses, came after. As it drew closer, he saw the beings inside... gigantic (compared to him anyway) beautiful, well groomed, canine things, wrapped in furs and since they had thumb-like dew claws, handling the reins quite deftly. Tomas, by now as big as a green, plastic, army guy, followed. Bit by bit, even though he was abroad in some sort of daylight, his vampiric abilities began to return. And he streaked through this alien atmosphere (a rudimentary form of sublimation) toward wherever the collie/wolf creatures were going. <more next time> click KIBBLES to browse all episodes of Vampire Wonderland. click BITS to join me on Twitter. please comment. spread your links around too. thank you.
I mus' be writing this in small, little letters, for I am very shy and this makes me feel less observable. You may ask what I am. I would tell you, if I knew, but that knowledge is not known to me. I am a wraith... a thing. Not disembodied, for I never had one of those. I float. I see. I taste. I die. But my death is not like yours. What befalls me is more like a sleep... a deep, blackness... a cosmic 'off' switch. Though at any moment, whoever's in charge of such things might turn me on. I saw neolithic settlements, desolate and alone, embedded deep into the post ice-age tundra.How grey the sky. How cold the air. Smilodon roamed that boggy plain, ripping the flesh from huge, white aurochs, juvenile mammoths and solitary humans. And bats, such as they were, had wingspans three cubits wide. Twenty four was middle aged. Few reached thirty. What misfortune to have lived back then. I saw beings from afar touch down in glowing orbs and lie with frightened girls. They whispered secrets, bit off fingers (just the little ones) and swallowed them down like hors'doeuvres. Ur had ziggurats. Kemet had pryamids. Mohenjo Daro had what Mohenjo Darans liked and Sodom had brothels. No age is unique. Even yours. You're not so special. What? You got lipstick, burger joints and lap tops?... Wage slaves... You're nothing but wage slaves. Rome had more style. Cathay more intrigue. Hellas better athletes. Hurry off to bed. The boss wants you bright and early. Make him rich. Go on. He'll throw you some coins. How I miss the Viking Age. No hypocrites there. Tear it off and make it yours. Kill the boss. Kill his kids. Kill everybody's kids. Then eat and drink and hump and sleep. I must say, they did put on quite a show... Some of the Arabs do that now, ISIS and all that. The only difference is 'time.'... It moves so quickly now. What will come next? I know a portal... a passageway 'tween this place and somewhere else. Speak to me not of parallel universes, or intersecting universes, or other plains, or whatever they tell you to call it. That's the trouble. 'They' tell you. So few people create anything now. They wait for others to sanction their very thoughts. Want to see inside? Tomas comes this way. A new Tomas. A different Tomas. Unafraid to be hungry, or to satisfy that hunger. I'll show him. I'll take him. Shhhh.... He smells something, an electrical frisson... a convergence of energies. None can see inside, til they are inside. Then the whole thing opens up. Tomas has seen other things before... But this time he brings something back. This time he isn't afraid. A surfeit of human blood will do that. It provides strength and heat and courage. Assert your power. If you don't have it, get it. I don't care. Just get it. Get it. Get it. Or create it out of thin air. Maybe I, myself, should not be so damn shy. <next time --- The Laurel Hill Doorway> click SHEEP to taste past vampire wonderland episodes. click ALPACAS to join me on Twitter. please comment. please subscribe. thank you.
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