peek into another place and another vampirina we haven't encountered yet 11/8/14 .. Autumn - Vivaldi

Seasons change. Lives pass. There are members of the night world we haven't encountered yet. While Tomas and his band prepare for The Redemption of The Prey People in that strange alternate universe ruled by Giant Civilized Canines, let us explore another place...



Fall settles upon the land. Not the soft, warm, 'Indian Summer' variety of September or October. This manifestation cuts deeper. Leaves are gone. Most of the insects have died. Apples are in the barn. Turkeys say their last prayers in anticipation of ritual slaughter. Children hurry home from school under grey and darkening skies.



A fox takes up residence under a holly thicket, waiting for careless, fat squirrels and their acorn spiced flesh. Grandmother walks the grounds, cataloging every image, as she has always done. Some gnarled maples... Crayfish in a brook... Ravens in the branches of recently denuded oaks. She loves the place, two hundred acres of meadow and woodlands tucked away in an unspoiled corner of Bucks County.... America's Cotswolds... another Brigadoon. And on a rise, overlooking a rustic, though subtly manicured greensward sits  'the house' a late Federalist, Pennsylvania stone manor. Has it been in the family since the beginning?... No, they came after the Franco-Prussian War, 1872 or 1873. Great-great-great- great Grandfather arranged finances for the Prussian ruling house. His second son, never to lead the firm, since that burden always falls upon the eldest, was provided with funds and shipped off to America. Connections in Philadelphia and New York arranged a position with The House of Warburg in Manhattan, a private bank heavily invested in railroads and silver mines. Thus was the family's 'New World' fortune established. 



Heinrich became Henry and Eisenstein became Ironstone, as the family settled into nineteenth century Philadelphia. The Bucks County place was mostly for weekends then. For the most part, life passed within the confines of a commodious brownstone mansion on North Broad Street, not far from The Pennsylvania Academy of The Arts where Thomas Eakins taught, and hard by that bastion of New World Spirituality, Temple Rodeph Shalom, mother chapel of the Reformed Faith hereabouts. Indeed, the family still prayed there, if not every Saturday morning, or Friday evening, often enough.



Once, while walking home from Eventide (the sundown service) an Ironstone son, some say Reggie, others Barnet saw a young woman... little more than a girl actually. Her hair was lose and full, an almost scandalous rarity in those days. And her coat seemed a bit too insufficient  for a November night. Although lyrically beautiful, she seemed 'fallen.' The brothers tried not to make eye contact, though in her own soft way, the girl was quite brazen and she decided for them.... Please, sirs - she said - may I have some assistance?... Though instead of lowering her gaze, as other, still respectable, beggar girls might, she continued to look right at them..... Perhaps it was Reggie who gave her the silver dollar. She took it and laughed--- Not this. I didn't mean this. Please help me. Please help me. .... Then she trembled and sighed, as her eyelids fluttered and she collapsed against Barney's (well, that's what they called him)  velvet collared Chesterfield coat. He didn't know what to do... She began to slide down toward the sidewalk.... Grab her. Grab her! - said Reggie... So he did... And seven minutes later, in a deepening late fall chill, they carried her 'round to the stable entrance and put her in a storeroom by the kitchen. Did anyone see?... Not really. Gas lights soften details and provide, at best an 'impressionist' image of the truth.



Thus came Elizabeth. Was she a vampire then?... No, but quite far down that road.... They bribed the cook and hid her from the family, feeding her cold meats, buttered bread and hard cooked eggs. Though a fortnight hence she dined on other things.....



Grandmother knew the tale. They all did, for Elizabeth was still with them.....



<more to come.. please listen to the portion up above. it's Vivaldi and you might like it...happy autumn>



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not part of our pixilated paranormal tale, but too good to pass up ... 11/6/14 ... David Letterman - Darlene Love "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" 2013

Tomas left the little boy and girl in a velvet lined lacquered box in the library. The lid didn't fit right and wouldn't close tight, so they'd get air. He threw in a few supplies from the dollhouse kitchen too...a  couple bottles of sparkling water... thimble filled with bacon shavings and tiny, chocolate chip sized, round loaves of pumpernickel bread.. Then he pushed the box behind a stack of books. They'd be alright, since the table was wedged in a corner hard by an ugly chair. Nobody would sit there.



Then he sublimated down to the cellar just in time to see the kitchen girl and two footman slide out the large tray and begin gathering what to them were miniature humans. The huge, civilized, dog things carefully plucked naked people up from the damp mushroom bed (careful not to crush any) and dropped them into a cigar box sized, wooden container,

perhaps eighty in all.  Considering what they'd just seen the tiny vampires do, some of them didn't want to go. Now they had an alternative. Now there was something else. Before, it was just live-graze-mate-reproduce-get taken to the glass tank in the kitchen-and die a horrible death. But now, even though they did not have a word for it, they could be vampires... little tiny, clueless, mean ass, vampires. At least that was something. So they squirmed and kicked and bit. Some were dropped to their deaths on the hard packed dirt below. A few survived, after a fashion, but the red, crab things quickly shredded them to bits. One or two fell into the folds of the kitchen 'girl's' skirts and carefully lowered themselves down, disappearing under the bottom of the lowest tray. Would the crab things find them? Who knows? But for now they were free. And some (the biters mostly) got crushed between rough, canine, paw-like fingers...  Ribs caved first... Abdominal organs spurted out through ruptured testicular sacs in the males and grotesquely swollen pudenda in the females. Thousands of shrimp sized people in the other stacked trays (fifteen in all) huddled together in the dirt. Next time it might be their turn.



But Polidori was in the box and the brand new vampire boy was too.



Then the footman slid the large rough, wood tray back in place, never a smooth procedure. When they had to jamb it in a few people bounced over the side and smacked down on the dirt. But they were only the second or third tier off the ground, so the fall to them equaled approximately two stories. Were there dislocations? Yes. Blunt trauma injuries, scrapes, fractures too. But they didn't suffer long. Crabs got them.



Tomas saw it all. Then, in near total darkness he climbed the old, splintered steps, squeezed under the door and entered the cold, shadowy kitchen. There was no moonlight. But white, midnight clouds reflected a bit of weak illumination in through the large, multi-pane windows. The glass tank was up there. From his angle he could just barely see it. But he could smell the humans and the two vampires inside. Should he sublimate? He did manage to make it through the huge, canine skull. But powers vacillate and he still had to get through the thick glass. If it was crystal, if there was lead in it that would be impossible. Vampires can't pass through lead. But the glass in the tank had a green tint. Crystal is usually clear... utterly clear.... 'crystal' clear. Well, he'd know soon enough.



The staff would be back to start preparing soon.... Bake bread...maybe a few pies and cakes what with the funeral luncheon and all. He had to be ready by then. Make a few more vampires. Kill a few more of the giant canines. Scare them. Terrify them. Make them think all humans had the power now. God knows what would happen then.



But at least it would be over. One way or another it would stop. The people would be free.



What came after was something else...



It had to work. It had to. And the children in the lacquered box had to be safe.



Tomas cried. He just wanted to go home. But we all want a lot of things and most times they never happen...



<more next time>



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VAMPIRE MAGIC COMES TO THIS STRANGE WORLD... 11/5/14

The children slowed them down and the three newly hatched vampires studied them intently. Considering two of them filled the roll of 'mother' and 'father' that was rather shocking. Tomas, fortunately, remembered his spiritual past and more and more found himself drifting back. The 'mother' and 'father' sensed his disapproval and hunted elsewhere. Quick forays down to the cellar, helped along by their ever increasing sublimation abilities opened their eyes... The stories were true. Tomas' stories were true. Thousands and thousands of dazed, silent humans, lying naked in huge stacks of ... well, mushroom beds. Not much light. Hardly any, really. They ate the mushrooms and the sprout-like things that grew there too. The humans, I mean. Grazed would be a better word. What did they think of? They obviously reproduced, so they had to think of something. A few from the lower trays tried to get out from time to time. But the red, crab things scuttling around the damp, dirt floors took care of that.

The girl from the glass tank on the counter in the kitchen started out down there. Now she's a vampire too. Oh, and Tomas gave her a name. He calls her Tillie, after a companion he had in Restoration England. The 'father' person wanted to change his name. Said it wasn't suited for a vampire. Wanted to be known as Doctor Polidori. You see, he morphed into this place thirty or forty years before Bram Stoker wrote Dracula. Only vampire he knew was Doctor Polidori. So he was Polidori and she was Tillie. The 'mother' person didn't have a name, not in any Earth language anyway. But she watched. She observed everything and would have one soon enough.

Tomas told them, Polidori and the 'mother' person, I mean, that they could sublimate through the crab things and finish them, just as he finished the canine giant upstairs. But they were afraid. So they raced across the hard packed earth two steps ahead of the huge, snapping 'castanets' and vaulted up into the second, or third tray, landing amidst pathetic, terrified, voiceless humans. Some of them chirped. They could do that. And the big ones instinctively sheltered the children. But it did no good. The new vampires were hungry. They needed food. The 'mother' person grabbed a little boy. She greedily hugged him, cooed and stroked his hair, then sank her teeth deep into his neck and killed him. After that she took his grandmother too. Polidori made do with a fat male. Just one. But he weighed more than the other two combined.

When it was done they looked. The frightened humans pressed back, forming a semi-circle with a radius of perhaps fifteen feet.  They saw the victims spontaneously ignite into cool, blue flames and disappear. A few cried. Those farther back pushed forward, reaching toward the faces of the witnesses. Then they brought their hands back to their own cheeks and knew. Polidori and the 'mother' woman watched and they knew too. These beings communicated. Not with words, but in their own unique and foreign way. Maybe it's based on chemical secretions from the skin, or some sort of electrical charge. But it was real.

One young man crawled over the writhing bodies to get a closer look. He saw the last, large, flaky ashes rise up from the greasy residue and disappear, floating out from the space between this tray and the next. Then he stared at the one called Polidori in wonder and amazement and the one called Polidori stared back. 

Ten minutes later it was done and the curious young man from the cellar was a vampire too.

But someone was coming. A giant canine kitchen 'girl' pounded down the old, wooden steps, followed by two 'footmen.'  They slid out the third wooden tray from the bottom, just over knee height to them, put it down on the floor and began choosing  human delicacies for the holding tank in the kitchen. A hurricane lamp shed just enough light for the task.  Next day was the funeral. After the two hundred foot long coffin found its place in the earth they'd all come back for a luncheon....

And live home grown humans were on the menu...

<more next time>

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THE RISING OF THE SHRIMP SIZED HUMANS... 11/4/14

They found her in the morning. A thin trickle of blood ran down from her ruined left eye and there was also a dark, sticky puddle under the right ear. By that point any of them might have done it. Sublimation training went well. The 'father' person, the 'mother' person, the girl from the glass tank in the kitchen... they all could do it. Vampire projectiles able to slice through, almost, anything.... an exquisite dollhouse filled with tiny, lethal monsters. But Tomas did it. As the most experienced and adept, it was only right that he go first. So he crept from the scaled down mansion as she slept, sublimated to the floor, scurried across the four acres of area rug in the moonlight, climbed up onto the sleigh bed and went straight to it. The two hundred and ten foot tall, blond, more or less Afghan looking canine woman slept.... and she never woke up.

He found his footing on the cool sheet. The thick, down, mattress pad made that difficult... like walking on a cloud. Then he gazed up at her immense head, lying cheek down (if canine giants actually had cheeks) upon the huge pillow. How peaceful she looked, like a slumbering, mammalian dragon. No, bigger than a dragon...like a sleeping, fine-muzzled, Gorgo (look that one up).

Did she deserve it? That was complicated. In her world she did not. Or even if during times of quiet contemplation she did... even if they recognized the satanic nature of things, she didn't have to worry about any sort of punishment. That's just how it was. Even fascists kiss their children.

So he thought the thoughts he had to think... felt his body energize and rose up. Once his bare feet left the cotton it all happened very fast. And the infinitely experienced vampire pierced through the skin of her eyelid like a laser. The rest was largely instinct, as the optic nerve and cauliflower protuberances of  her brain liquefied under his attack. She never moved. He effervesced by the right ear, solidified and climbed down, then he walked, naked (clothing rarely survives a good sublimation) back to the table, scratched his way up the cloth and went inside. The 'maid' person was gone, pinned up in a frame by the cloakroom three nights ago, as a work of folk art, but the 'mother' person ran a bath. The minute, intricate plumbing worked, so long as one of the giant domestics filled the glass reservoir bottle. Tomas laid back in the tepid water and washed the sticky, bloody bits away.  After that he dressed. Then he and his three companions, plus the 'sister' child and the 'brother' child, climbed down from their wondrous, dollhouse, palace and tip-toed toward the cellars, there to infect the others, not all of them, but enough......

The 'rising' had begun.....

A few hours later two giant canines entered the room.... a 'lady's' maid accompanied by some other type of domestic, to help the young miss prepare for the day. More outings in the bright, wintry sun.... Perhaps another sleigh ride... holly gathering... something like that. How they keened at the sight. Dried blood sealed the ruined eye. And being simple country 'girls' they sank to their knees mumbling prayers. After a bit, one left to get the family.

No one thought about the tiny, living toys in the dollhouse. Indeed, had they remained and still been mortal they would have starved...

Little lives don't mean much...

<more next time>

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MUSINGS ON ISOLATED SNIPPETS OF HORROR ... 11/2/14

The leaves are desiccated and brown. Flies are dying. Tired people trudge home from the bus in the dark. Old coats from last year (or last decade) are dragged out. Skin looks pale, or ashy and dead. The cold time is upon us. Humanity hides indoors, breathing in an atmosphere as dry as the Namibian Desert. 

This is when we read actual bound books and watch old movies. There's nothing like a 1930's classic on a cold, dark, almost winter night. All curled up. Wrapped in a snuggie. Surrounded by accent cushions. Doors locked. Shades down. Nesting time. As long as the phone doesn't ring, nothing could be better.

So let's talk about ancient and not so ancient types of torture.
Let's talk about solitary victims stripped bare and given over to essentially diabolical souls.

They say there was a client kingdom, far off along a distant shore of The Black Sea. Roman tax gatherers came by maybe twice a year, but their garrison just to the north kept the barbarians away. So the king paid and he seethed  at the indignity of it. And the population suffered. Some went into the sea. Dropped overboard, down into the midnight depths, freezing cold and bound in chains. Imagine those moments... conscious but doomed. Cold beyond all bearing. Heart pounding. Twisting and writhing in the crushing grip of a giant, unseen hand. Eardrums gone. Sea water rushing in, exploding delicate tubing and flooding down toward the gut. Don't gasp! Don't gasp! Don't gasp! LIVE! LIVE! LIVE! One heart beat more. One heart beat more. And still you plummet. Ribs crack. Sternum buckles. And then you gasp. And then you breathe. 

Do you know what it feels like when a mouthful of ocean water winds up in the wrong place? You know, that day at the seashore, jumping waves with your friends? Too much laughter. Too many hot dogs. Too much sand. Not enough sun block. And here comes THE BIG ONE, that moving wall of water, that mini tsunami, unbelievably huge... Then it's here, towering above you, maybe four feet over your head. You gasp, scrunch your eyes and try to live, while you and all the other little one tumble about like towels in a washer. Then you're on the sand and it's over... almost. But you wheeze and cough, trying to expel a tiny bit of water from the delicate tissues of your lungs. It hurts. It itches. You feel the pressure, but then it's gone, replaced with a red, raw, heat.

Drowning is something like that, but infinitely worse. Both lungs fill with water, like two sacks filled with cement. There's no way to force it out. If you even try more just rushes in. Air sacs begin to leak and rupture. Lungs explode. Can you imagine what that's like? I don't think you can. Crushed from the outside. Crushed from the inside... Broken and ruined... All from water. And then you're dead. Sometimes it takes five minutes. If it's really icy even longer.

And that's the most benign form of torture.

Polynesian kings staked victims down, spreadeagled, in advance of flowing lava, feet toward a searing heat, more  than twice the temperature required to melt lead. And some lava flows very slow... inch after inch after inch. Death, when it comes, is a precious gift. 

In some traditions today is All Souls Day. Pray for the dead.

And stay warm..... 

<back to our regular Vampire Wonderland tale next time>


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thank you for your support. and I would have posted a regular episode tonight, but saturday is my #realSNLtalk night, LIVE and ongoing during every #SNL broadcast. (Saturday Night Live for those outside the North American market) And it's not just me. Tonight we had six or seven or eight people posting, plus others tweeting, fav'ing and retweeting. Industry types, everybody. 

Lot a stores are decorated already, so if you want to escape the cold wind tomorrow, go to a mall. Drink a pumpkin latte (when it gets closer to Christmas they'll have venison lattes) buy a toy or two and take it all in.

Peace...

Billy Kravitz' vampire wonderland: The House on Hoxton Street.. 2/21/13 after THE REV...

Billy Kravitz' vampire wonderland: The House on Hoxton Street.. 2/21/13 after THE REV...: Many of the properties along the way have been modernized and are essentially the same as similar residences in say Chicago or Washington. ...I think of this as pixilated paranormal 'fiction' for adults of all ages. It's drenched in real world references, richly detailed and magically told. Please click on 'The House on Hoxton Street' line up above to see the actual episode. That house is a very real place and quite well known in certain rarefied circles. Somewhat like a nonfiction Hogwarts for post grads. It's still there and it still functions.



This episode is the perfect place to slip into that ongoing tale.



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LET YOUR VERY BODY BE A HOLY SPEAR... vampire revenge... 10/31/14

They had to practice in secret. But by that time the 'father' person and the 'mother' person were vampires too. It gave them a certain sense of security, though even vampires can be crushed. The children they left alone. And the other human female, the one who stayed up in her room all the time, remained mortal too. She's a dope. She wouldn't know the difference anyway. The maid was gone. Well, not completely. Her dried, mounted body ( re-dressed in maid's habit) was displayed behind glass, in a little, golden frame at the door to the cloakroom just off the baronial entrance hall. The blond giant-dog-woman took her one night after dinner. Came upstairs, carefully lifted up the roof (altered to be removable), reached in and delicately snatched her, just as the reverent servant was preparing for bed. Went back to get the uniform too, carefully smoothed out over the back of a miniature chair.The female canines were 'crafting' that night and they needed a maid (for some reason maids symbolized cloakrooms, powder rooms and all that), so the afghan looking blond thing thought it'd be clever to use a 'real' one. The others laughed as she smothered her in the wet, chloroform soaked cotton wool. Whether or not the incredulous, terrified maid laughed is unknown. Fortunately, during the time when the roof was off, none of the other dollhouse residents were molested, for the adults were downstairs playing whist at the time and the children were dreaming over picture books in the library. But Tomas knew how real the danger was. That's when he started to teach them.

Now instructing a new life-eater (politically correct term for vampire) in sublimation is a lot like showing a baby bird how to fly. The flesh is willing, but the spirit is weak. Have you ever seen a wet, skinny, little human child shivering at the end of a diving board? Mom-mom and Pop-pop chirp encouragingly. Pa-pa waits in the pool. Ma-ma sits nervously on a chaise pretending to read about J-Lo or whatever 'Lo' they're selling that year. The hesitant baby bird inches forward... inches back... looks... grins... groans... cries... fidgets... bends over, straightens up... bends over, straightens up... sucks in a lung full... breathes it out.. does it again... runs out and takes a leap. Arms flail. Legs pump and SPLASH! They did it. Pa-pa hugs them,  but they break away, eager to do it again... and again... and again.... That's what sublimation lessons are like, only the stakes are so very much higher.

They went down into the dollhouse cellar. No trays and towers (see previous post) there. Tomas found some thin sheets of oak paneling, spares for the library, the smoking room and other places. He took one and gave it to girl from the glass kitchen tank, since she'd been 'vampire' longest and instinctively knew what to expect. So she held it like a giant playing card. Then he turned toward the others, squared his shoulders and passed right through it. THAT'S sublimation. Every atom of his body vibrated at a slightly higher frequency. Each repelled the others. Did Tomas fly apart? No, but the space between particles was ever so slightly greater than normal, enabling him to move through solid mater like smoke. The girl from the glass tank in the kitchen went next. Took her about two hundred and thirty one heartbeats to get up the courage, but she did it. Third was the 'father' person. He was scared, but managed to do it too. Last came the 'mother.' She cried and shook her head. Tomas encouraged her, mostly with gestures since they spoke different languages. The kitchen tank girl, by now quite proficient, passed her hand through from the opposite side and waved. The 'mother' person laughed. She was scared, but she did it. 

Tomas sighed. Lesson over. Night one. They did it. Now it was just a question of raising the bar... thicker barriers... harder surfaces... denser materials... Inanimate matter isn't effected. Glass is still glass. Bricks are still bricks. But living matter isn't like that. Organic tissue is destroyed. Flesh shreds. Bone shatters. Organs liquefy. Creatures die. Tomas could most likely pass through the skull of a giant civilized dog creature quite easily. Stone, brains, air... it was all the same to him. The others would need a bit more training. But one night they'd do it. Entry through an eye was best. Like a 'living' spear they'd be, melting the brain and ending the life.... Supernatural wasps with long, sharp stingers. Quite a force. Then they'd liberate the masses in the Great House cellars and the others in the glass kitchen tank. Did the culture deserve to end? Had it not accomplished much in the way of architecture, literature, domestic arts and God knows what else? Perhaps they had a religion? The giant canines were devoted to their children. That much was obvious. But the small and helpless humans were living creatures too. And God knows what they might do.

A new Spartacus would go out across the land. Or considering his relative size, a new Mighty Mouse. 

Did Tomas want the job? No, but the job wanted him.

So much for his nights as an amoral, vampire wastrel .

Solo Deus sabe que sera --- they said in Old Vahmperigo. Tomas' original vampire tongue.... Only God knows what will be.....In our dimension and every other...

<more later>

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