Lewis Aleman - The Anti-Vampire

“Carvelli and Quint, wait outside the alley again.”

“But, Roderick, he—”

Roderick slaps him across his face, and says, “Don’t question me, Quint. Do what I say or take his place when I’m done with him.”

They obey, leaving just the one monster within my arm’s reach.

“Simon, Simon, Simon. I asked you a simple question, and you nearly went to pieces. What am I to think about you? I think you’re done. Nothing left to offer me. That’s a dangerous place to be, young boy.”

“For the girl. It was for Ruby, not Ambrosia. Helped her escape because of Ruby.”

“All this—for her?”

“Could ask you the same thing, Roderick? All this for Ambrosia?”

“Don’t you worry about Miss Ambrosia. I don’t plan on hurting her at all. Just need something she has. The two of you have made this a much bigger deal than it is.”

“If you just need something she has—why not go to her apartment and take it?”

“It’s a dorm room, and if it were still there, do you think I’d be wasting my time talking to you and sending half the vampires in New Orleans out looking for you and Ruby?”

“She took it with her?”

“Of course.”

“Stupid girl.”

Smiles, “Now, you’re starting to get it, my boy. Help me find Ambrosia, and I could care less about you and your little girlfriend. I have better things to do than chase after you anyway.”

“Why don’t you let me get what you need from Ambrosia, then? No need for you to have her if you just want something she has.”

Growing impatience builds in his tone, “Doesn’t know she even has it. I’ll have to take it from her—she won’t even know what you’re talking about.”

“What if I take it from her?”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Right now, I’d do a lot to end this.”

Roderick punches the bricks to the side of my left ear. The collision makes my sight shake again.

He grumbles in my ear, “Less you know about this, the better—you remember that. Now tell me where she is.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not, Simon? Don’t you know what I’ll do when I find her—especially now, after your defiance? I’ll bring a new meaning to the word torture, and you’ll never be free of me after this. Ever. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“You’d endure all that for her?”

“Yes.”

“You’ve heard the stories about my anger—things I’ve done to those who disobey me?”

I nod.

“The thing about those tales is that no one who was there has ever lived. The stories were told by those who only heard the screams from a distance—heard the wretched cries from those who knew first-hand what I can do. Nothing you’ve heard equals what I can bring. And you still defy me?”

“Yes.”

“For a girl ?”

“What else?”

“They are vile, miserable meatbags, who in a single turn of our lives crumble to dust. What in any of them can make you be so foolish?”

“You live in your own dark world; you don’t see them in the day. You don’t know what they do—what they’re capable of. You judge them all based on the actions of the wildest of the bunch that you find down here—and you only see the wildest at their worst—their craziest. That’s why people come down here—for the raunchiest time of their lives. You judge people you don’t even know.”

His voice intensifies, growing like an approaching storm, “You don’t think I know what goes on inside of a human? What about the 17 years I spent chained to a brick wall in Spain? Huh? What about that little bit, Simon?”

Pause. No answer.

His voice like stones dragged across rocks continues, “My only relief from the pressing of the brick’s grooves into my back was to be taken away when one of the monks thought of a new torture for me to endure. There was no getting out of one’s chains to relieve oneself; we lived in our own filth. I killed over three dozen guards before I lost count—they didn’t care—always had another expendable soul to handle us.

“Some say only the rich were burned—the landowners. I was no rich man, but I was burned. And burned. And burned again.

“I smelled nothing but rancid surroundings and rotting flesh for 68 seasons. Hours seemed like days—days like years—years like millennia. Had no idea how long I spent in that underground terror chamber until I came out. The year 1800 passed with no notice to me in their hellish stone labyrinth.

“When the smell became too much for their own nostrils—even beneath the hoods covering their faces, they would let fire run wild through our dungeons, letting the flames decide who would be consumed and who would be spared. The fire had a taste for me as if my flesh tickled its burning tongues as they singed me. The smell of my own charred flesh was far worse than the others. It was when they marveled at how my flesh healed that they took particular interest in me.

“They found countless tortures that killed all others but would only keep me in a state of constant hell. Dislocated shoulders—shredded muscles in the rack, hanging from the ceiling by leather straps, the water torture, and little terrors made just for me. And of course the fire. Always the fire…”

His eyes flicker as he says fire, pausing before continuing, “I screamed many things into the darkness of those chambers. I could not renounce their God, but I did renounce their church. Again and again. It was my only pleasure. Screaming it at them with all my strength.

“Only a single friend and myself left at the end. He thought me to be dead when the French Army took possession of Toledo. He himself was pinned with a lowering pendulum descending upon him, rats threatening to eat his writhing body, followed by steaming walls slowly pushing him to the edge of an unholy pit. It was there that he was about to perish when the French army freed him.

“I slew my distracted guard who was trembling from the sounds of the invading army. Slipped out in the midst of the chaos. Grateful for their assistance, but I feared my treatment from the imposing army would be just as fierce if they learned what I was.”

I shudder, trying to shake the nastiness of the tale off my skin. KMFDM’s “Juke Joint Jezebel” vibrates its way through the door into the alley.

“So, young one, I know all too well the imaginings of humans and where their inquisitions will take them. How much do you think you know in your short life with them? How much have you been through to be right where I’m wrong?”

“Can’t condemn them all by what a few did to you—as terrible as it was. Can’t blame the innocent for the guilty. Just like you can’t blame me for your own actions.”

“Just you live with them long enough, young one. They’ll change your mind. Mark my words; humanity makes its own enemies—they don’t need my help.”

“Where do we go from here?”

“Well, I have two options.”

“They are?”

“One: I call Carvelli and Quint, and we tear you apart until you squeal or until you die.”

“And two?”

“I let you think about all this.”

“What?”

“I let you go—let you take in all we discussed. Think about me finding you and your girl. It’s only a matter of time—I will find you—I will find Ruby; you know it. And there will be no talking then.”

“Let me go to think about what? What do you think is gonna change?”

“Think about giving me the information I need. Think about living happily ever after with your green-eyed Ruby. Think about all of us living to see a better day, or…huh…I can show you one hell of a dark evening tonight.”

“I can’t promise you anything.”

Puts his nose an inch from mine. Less than an inch. Less than a centimeter.