Mark Tufo - 'Til Death Do Us Part

“I love you, Lizzie.”

I wanted to turn away this was worse than watching the Hallmark channel.

“I love you too, Tomas. And that is why you should go.”

“Why won’t you open your eyes, Lizzie? Please, please look at me.”

Tears pushed through her closed lids. “Please, Tomas, don’t look at me this way. I’m not the sister you used to know. Unspeakable things have been done to me and I found a way to right those wrongs and I took it. I will exact my revenge.”

“That’s not how my Lizzie talks,” Tomas said as he wiped at his blurring eyes.

“GO!” She pushed him away. Her eyes seemed to produce their own light as she looked at him menacingly. I backed up an extra step. This was more of the Eliza I knew, unbridled power and a deep wish to unleash it on all those around her.

“I will not!” he screamed, but to me it looked like he was tensing to spring away from her.

Eliza sat up. I could see Tomas’ window of opportunity to make a clean get away closing rapidly on exposed fingers. Tomas finally seemed to be getting it as he stood and started backing up, it would have been impossible to miss her cross over from love to predatory awareness. He kept shaking his head in denial but I knew that wasn’t going to help him at all. The field mouse can continue to eat its seed even in the talons of the hawk, but that isn’t going to change the outcome: flesh rending and bone crunching.

With an ungodly speed, Eliza wrapped her hand around Tomas’ neck. He was at least six inches off the ground; I knew that feeling well enough.

“Lizzie, please,” he begged.

Eliza didn’t waste any time as she bit down hard on his neck. Tomas screamed in pain.

“Lizzie please, I love you!” His tears splashed down on her upturned face.

Some last remnant of Lizzie rose to the surface. She pulled her extended canines out of his neck. “GO!” she screamed again. “I won’t be able to stop next time.” She looked defeated, with her head bowed. Tomas dropped to the ground as she released her grip.

He scurried away. I would imagine scarcely believing the turn of events. “I love you, Lizzie. I will follow you until I find a way to fix whatever has happened here tonight.”

I watched for a moment as Eliza hesitated, she looked like she had regretted her last decision. If I hadn’t already met Tommie, I would have assumed she finished him off right there and then. She warred within herself for long minutes fighting the urge to hunt him down, the only thing that might have saved Tomas was an unfortunate boy who had just bought a loaf of bread and was most likely taking a short cut to get home. The bread soaked in the melting snow as Eliza drained the boy dry. She discarded his husk much like a smoker would a used cigarette, she flicked him away with no regard for who he was or had been.

He was a meal plain and simple. I mean, I guess it makes sense. Lions don’t sit there and think about the gazelle’s hopes and dreams as they rip chunks of meat from its hindquarters, why would she? We whooshed again, the journeys through the ripples of her mind were causing no small amounts of vertigo but since I was fairly certain I didn’t have a stomach which to throw up with I should be fine.

Through a thick glassy haze I watched her meeting with The Stranger in the tavern in London, but her memory of it must have been skewed from the affects of the cross over, she was having a difficult time keeping her head up as long dirty stringy strands of her hair kept pooling up on the rough wooden table.

The Stranger smiled as Eliza staggered in, though she was the only female, lithe and beautiful in form and almost most assuredly drunk beyond awareness, the men in the tavern fell over themselves trying to get away from her. The Stranger did not stand to help her but merely smiled slightly as she fell into her seat.

“I did not think you would make the transition, and I’m still not so sure,” he said as he tightly gripped her chin and thrust her face up so that he could look in her eyes. “You have eaten? Impressive, most die in these first few hours because they cannot overcome their human weaknesses. But you’re a survivor aren’t you? I think I chose wisely.” He let go of her and her forehead almost bounced off the table.

“Come,” he said, standing and whisking quickly towards the door. He did not help her or wait, she struggled to stand and lurched out into the murky light to try and keep pace. We whooshed quickly from scene to scene, most consisted of her severe beatings at the hands of her ‘savior.’ He had saved her from one hell only to be thrust into a different layer. The only time he seemed even remotely ‘human’ was when they would go on feeding frenzies in some of the more outlying areas of Britannia, if that was what it was even called back then. I got the sense we were still on English speaking soil, but mostly all I was hearing from the peasant populations was crying and screaming as the vampire duo tore through them like hyenas at an orphanage.

You get the imagery, right? It was that bad. I wanted to forget that this had ever happened. The human misery these two were doling out was without rival. They actually reveled in their kills, playing with children much like a cat does with a mouse. Even going so far as to toss one back and forth as they took small measures of blood, the mother screaming in horror as she would run from one vampire to the other in a desperate bid to get them to stop. If I could have stepped through the barrier of time to never return to my own era just to have the chance to stop them I would have. I was merely a voyeur to their disease.

This repeated to the point where I just stopped watching. She had each kill catalogued in her memory like a soccer mom stores dinner recipes on a little rolodex, although really, how many mom’s still did that up until the end. Most likely all of that was either on a smart phone or a tablet, these days though it would be whatever was scavenged. It was only by mere chance that I caught what unfolded next, I was getting a crick in my non-existent neck and pulled my head back up from my penny finding pose.

The Stranger was completely old-school as far as vamps go, he was sleeping in a coffin, but where there should have been dirt I saw what looked like the finest of silks, apparently blood thirsty creatures of the night liked their comfort also. Eliza was staring down at him, she was on the far side of the coffin her hands guiltily behind her back, from this angle I could not tell what she was hiding. She was about as coy as a five year old with chocolate all over his face and a busted cookie jar on the kitchen floor, adamantly denying any knowledge to the events in said room.

She kept inching closer to him, peering intently at his face. It was impossible to figure out what she was doing but she looked to me like she was trying to find his soul.

“Good luck with that,” I said aloud.

Eliza looked straight up and at me as I said the words, she startled the shit out of me, I was pretty glad I was incorporeal at the moment or I would have had a hell of a mess to clean up. After my heart stopped trying to dislodge itself from my chest I realized she was looking through me and at the doorway where something heavy had scraped against stone, at least that’s what it sounded like. When she looked back down at The Stranger, his eyes were open and he was eyeing Eliza curiously and I might add a little warily. It seems the same noise had disturbed his beauty rest.

“Up early, my dear?” he asked.

Her head moved back, but she did not. Eliza nodded once and I could tell she was wavering with whatever her plan had been.

He began to sit up; that was all the trigger Eliza needed as she pulled a large wooden stake from behind her back. What happened next was too fast to track with human eyes, but when I caught up, Eliza had plunged the stake at least 8 inches deep into The Stranger’s chest. He in the mean time had wrapped his large hand around her slender throat, he was dying but he seemed very determined to take her with him. The world would have been a much brighter place had they both succeeded. Eliza finally wrenched free as the vampire’s heart began to beat its final rhythm. Eliza stepped back and placed her hands to her bruised and blackened throat.