Pages From a Vampire's Journal (3 page)

Journal Entry 78: “
Caught another disease again, this time from one of the young ones. How could that have happened? To make matters worse, some do-gooder detective is going around asking questions about missing kids. I didn’t answer the door but did see him peeking into the windows. Maybe I will get him as well. Will have to follow him and see where he lives. I’ll bet he has some juicy, tender kids that I could snatch. Probably a whole litter of little kittens. He won’t miss one at all
.
World has enough little girls anyway
”

They started back to Trixie’s house.

They walked a quarter of a mile in the snow strewn streets, with Trixie’s finches occasionally protruding their heads out of the small pockets of her coat, looking down at the snowy sidewalk as they walked.

Cedric started to slow his pace. He glanced over at an empty lot sporting a lone tree stump and a house being constructed. A bobcat machine rested among the piles of lumber and littered Styrofoam cups, a result of the tired construction crew, now understandably absent from the storm. A large dog-like thing paced between the columns of the house in construction, or at least what seemed to be dog-shaped.

Cedric extended his arm across Trixie’s mid-section.

“Hold up a second. Look over there…is that a dog or something else?”

Trixie looked into the alley between the newly shingled house and a wooden fence and saw what looked like a black mass of…something, peering back at them from the darkness.

“Yeah I think it’s a dog. Maybe he likes staring contests.”

Motionless, it seemed chimerical, as if the construction crew had unearthed some relic but made for shelter from the storm before any of them could call the nearest archeology department.

It stared back at them like it was deciding what to do.

They started to walk further down the block towards their destination when they heard scuffling behind them.

Trixie looked back and gulped.

“It is following us.”

Cedric looked back and saw the dark thing creeping at a slow pace

“I think we should just keep walking. Don’t run” he said.

“I hadn’t planned on running”.

Cedric squinted, trying to get a better view of the creature while brushing away rogue snowflakes from his eyelashes.

“I don’t think that is a dog. It looks more like a black wolf who is hungry. Do you still have those finches…?”

“Don’t even go there.”

Cedric picked up his pace a bit.

“I thought you said no running. What the hell are you doing?” she asked

“I ain’t runnin…I just want to get us some distance you know?”

“Getting distance
is
running.”

She looked back…it was much, much closer now, almost trotting faster than they were. He was a huge creature with a larger-than-average black mane that took gave him a kingly appearance, like a clan leader of an ancient hunting tribe would have.

She glanced back in the direction of her house. “Too far to run without getting bit” she thought.

Cedric said, “Hey look over there… that is my church. Let’s try to go inside, as it’s usually unlocked about this time o’ day. Sometimes I go in there to talk to my priest.”

The black thing bellowed out a hideous howl and sprinted towards them.

“
RUN
!” Cedric yelled.

They both peeled off like dragsters towards the catholic steeple across the street.

Trixie got to the building first and grabbed the large, brass door knob and turned hard.

L-o-c-k-e-d.

Cedric arrived, yelling “No you have to lift
up
on the handle when you turn it!”

The black creature arrived and galloped up the steps.

Cedric stopped what he was doing and reached into his pocket, fumbling about before pulling out a small canister barely larger than a cigarette lighter labeled “
For Law Enforcement Use Only
”. He pressed the nozzle in the creature’s direction, spraying a blob of beige foam all over its hellishly black face. The black thing let out a large yelp of irritation and turmoil as it used its black paws to wipe away the foul, foreign substance from its deep-set eyes.

“I can’t get this open! It’s locked!”

“Here move out of the way a sec…Jesus!” he snapped

He quickly pushed her aside and pulled while lifting up as hard as he could.

The door finally gave way with a “clunk-clunk” sound.

“Now get in!”

Trixie rushed into the red-carpeted hallway.

The creature lunged at Cedric’s leg, grasping his white sneaker while he sprayed mace all over the creature which seemed to dodge his every effort.

Cedric let out a loud yell as it sinked its teeth into his shoe. The creature’s eyes weren’t like that of your average canine. They lacked a pupil, being more akin to a shark’s eyes…deep black marbles which rolled over at the fatal bite.

In the hastily commotion, Cedric’s rabbit foot slipped out of his pocket and onto the cathedral steps.

The black creature’s gaze targeted the charm before letting go of Cedric’s shoe.

It snatched the rabbit’s foot and took off running.

With the creature gone, Cedric stepped into the hall with a limp, trying to shake away the black creature’s thick saliva which covered his shoe.

“That thing is in for a surprise if he tries to eat that charm. Ouch…”

Cedric glanced down at his foot, now free of the shoe. There was dark blood coming from his heel.

She knelt down, removed his shoe and looked at the bite mark. It was just a nip really. Barely enough to draw blood, but certainly enough to wonder what sickly microbes could be in his bloodstream on the way to his heart. The shoe had protected a good portion of it.

“You should get that bite looked at. You don’t know where that thing came from or where it’s been”.

“Yeah yeah”. Cedric picked himself up and escorted her down the velvet hallway towards the main entrance. No one was here.

“Where is he? Your priest. He could give us a ride through the storm” she asked.

“Well he just kind of comes and goes. He is a distant relative actually. Or so my sister says. I’ve known him for a few years. Catechism class is over with by now though. He sometimes goes out to refill the gas tank for the lawnmower”.

“Maybe he is stuck at the gas station” she remarked.

“Or maybe he is down at that pit again! He likes to drink scotch on wintry days.”

“Oh…ok”, she sighed. “Well it is weird that he left the door unlocked.”

“It’s not unlocked. That was just a trick I know to get past the lock. Anyone else probably couldn’t open it from out there.”

Outside, the snow began to belt the great oak doors as the wind gushed its displeasure onto the sacred chapel that sheltered them. Trixie wondered how long he had before any symptoms of rabies manifested themselves, if at all. Was the hospital open? Or would he, like most egotistical men, snort in the face of the microbes that had invaded his foot and not treat the wound at all? Like most construction guys, Cedric was stubbornly independent. He didn’t let on if he was lost in the woods or the city. He never let on if he was suffering from some acute migraine. He just progressed. He marched on regardless of which one of nature’s trained minions tried to dominate him. Once in the forest with all his dad’s men of carpentry and nails, he had stepped on an old beaver trap and nearly severed off his foot. However he didn’t scream but merely limped himself to help. He just endured, and would endure whatever the black thing donated to him somehow, at least until the storm let up and he could get to a nurse.

Trixie looked down at her watch, and then took out her finches to let them walk around on the carpet. They flew upon an adjacent vase with what smelled of strawberry-scented potpourri. It was the same kind that she used in her room, to which they were strangely attracted to. On the other side of the hallway was a display case full of parchments from the catholic diocese, remnants of a time when things were written in earnest haste with pens and loose-leaf paper rather than anything digital.

Cedric led Trixie to the main hall which resembled a museum of stained glass apostles and saints. There was no direction one could glance where one’s eyes did not align with some revered martyr or historic figure. Giant chandeliers with shimmering crystal hung high overhead like stalactites threatening the penitent pupils below. Old oak pews felled from the trees of local forests lined the hall like fallen timber from a forest fire. Cedric felt a certain kinship whenever he took seat amid the row of dead oaks, like a druid needing forgiveness of his sin. He didn’t quite understand the connection with what required humility and forgiveness to be interspersed so intimately with the pomp and ceremony of the hall. It seemed a contradiction of sorts, like star constellations aligned in inappropriate positions. The Church required humility and repentance with one’s eyes closed, yet when he opened them he was enamored with the visual feast of wealth, materialism and vanity. Most of his congregation was from the well-to-do part of town. The doctors, attorneys, and real-estate agents would attend their weekly ceremony of mass or catechism and have their sins absolved, or so they presumed. He glanced at the communion table which seemed to glitter with the glamour of a dragon’s hoard. Cedric was a fellow who noticed the details of the unnoticeable and benign. At a movie theater he had the habit of studying the reactions of the audience to the action on the screen. At theater plays he studied the ebb and flow of applause to hisses, trying to gauge any facial gesture’s correlation with success or failure like that of any street mime. He relished detail, as well as swimming against the tide.

There was a solemn silence that permeated throughout the hall, like they were being watched by spirits long gone from the physical world, but who had not quite ascended to the judgment seat. They lingered in death as they had in life. Trixie came and sat down next to him in the pew. She looked over at his leg and put her hand on his thigh.

“How does this feel?” she asked.

“How does what feel?” Cedric quipped.

“Sigh, your foot!”

“Oh, that. Hey don’t worry. Once I almost lost my leg in a beaver trap. It was rusty as hell and thank the lucky stars I didn’t run into any bears and get mauled…”

She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek.

She looked at him smilingly and said, “If you ask me what that was for I’m going to stomp on your other foot”.

Cedric chuckled took a deep breath.

“I feel better already” he said.

He took her hand and held it up to his lips. He smelled strawberry potpourri as he lightly kissed it. The thinly hairs on her hand brushed against his lips like the wind on an amber sea of grain.

He leaned over and planted himself right into her.

She gently put her hand on his chest, noticing that his lucky rabbit pendent was missing and realized it was now in the possession of the black wolf-like thing that had attacked them earlier.

He wrapped his hand around her neck and kissed her some more before letting his hand trickle down to her breast.

She exhaled and muttered, “when it rains around here, it really does pour.”

Cedric smiled back and whispered, “Geez, do I need to confess already? Nothing drastic of course, but sometimes I like to take my time and others, well, not so much.”

It all depended on if the moment merited it, and this was certainly one of those moments. Cedric hadn’t really noticed it earlier because of the veil of her black shirt, but she had breasts that seemed unusually grounded, like that of a ballet dancer or female martial artist. Controlled, muscular and well-honed to resist the anarchy of the elements, which was in heavy abundance on this particular night.

Trixie wondered if he was the sort of guy who would down an entire glass of merlot in one shot, or if he liked to savor it the way she did: slowly and effortlessly, gently swishing the wine to every direction of her mouth before swallowing. She was betting on the former. He seemed to do some things excess and slow in others.

“Wait here…I just forgot about something that might make things a little less painful for my foot here…”

And with that Cedric jogged over to a desk that lied solemnly in the corner. He quickly rifled through drawer after drawer looking for something he had caught a glimpse of the previous week among a mass of attendees.

“Ah ha, here it is!”, he exclaimed.

From the bottom of the large oak desk he pulled out a large bottle of red merlot. He looked at the label: “Stags Leap, 1980”.

Trixie raised her eyebrows at him and said “I hope we’re not using those pitiful little communion cups. That could take all night for a bottle like that!”

A light went off in Cedric’s head. He rifled through the desk some more and pulled out a dusty old plastic wineglass covered with scratches. He ran over to the holy water receptacle and rinsed out the cup, splashing some water droplets on his injured foot below.

“Ow!” he yelped. He looked quizzically at the water as if he had spilled hydrochloric acid on himself, which he had indeed done for his science project at school once. Taking a closer look, the water droplets fizzled around his sore and seemed to instantly disappear.

He then dried off the glass with his white T-shirt.

He strolled back over to Trixie with the bottle swinging pendulum-like from his hand, limping a bit from the wound.

“This has been in there forever but for some unfathomable reason no one seems to want it. Except me, right now, right here, with you”. He winked at her.

“Maybe I will have a little” she said.

He started to pour the merlot into the plastic glass, a misnomer if there ever was one.

“Ouch! Son of a bitch is hurting now. It was fine before and now all of a sudden it wants to ruin my party”.

He massaged his foot with one hand while handing the cup to Trixie with the other.

She put the cup of merlot down under the pew and took his leg over her lap.

She looked closer at the wound. She grabbed a communion cup from the pew in front of them and poured some merlot in it.