Notes

A Lonely House Amongst The Trees

The vampire wasted no time and rode as soon as the sun dipped below the horizon. The sky, not yet veiled by the night, bore streaks of crimson and copper like gasps of ember in a dying fire. As the rhythmic drumming of the horse’s hooves echoed through the valley, she casted a backwards glance at the glowing windows of the little town dwindling into mere pinpricks on the darkened canvas of the landscape. Carving a path through some thickets into a yawning expanse, a brisk draught teased and whistled against her hat. The dry, earthy scent of the wilderness dragged along the brazen tang of fresh warm blood which her senses danced to. She stalked it with predatory grace, restraining her instinct as if it were a wild beast lashing out in unseen chains. Pressing her eyes into the distance, she discerned a solitary ranch that stood small and far, swallowed by the blue-black rock fields.After an hour more passed on the saddle, she reached the old thing, its worn-down frames barely distinguishable from the skeletal branches of the elm trees that gathered and died behind. To dub it a ranch would have been a generous act; for it barely had two pens and a singular cow that followed the vampire with its sunken eyes as she rode past. A dying candle wavered within the desolate shack, casting its feeble light onto the weed-infested porch. The vampire circled her steed quietly through the trees, pillowing its footfalls on rotting leaves. She slowed at a spot well-hidden within the shadows to dismount, and to her surprise, her feet met a solid surface amidst the tired mud. She drew closer for inspection, and discovered herself standing on the overgrown grave of an Elisabeth Walton who died at 19.The vampire, in her cruelty and perversion, developed a habit of studying those from whom she fed. It was her twisted form of an homage, like studying the menu of a lavish meal. So she crept up to the windowsill of the little shack to inspect, and rested her eyes on a sleeping figure, cocooned within a potato sack like a writhing maggot. With the candle snuffed out, she could just barely trace the furrowed brows that aged his grimy face as he shivered and clenched his jaws into the bitter air. The vampire gently nudged the door ajar then slid inside like a spectre. Through the opened crack, moonlight spilt in and sighed on the surface of a whiskey bottle lying beside her feet. She surveyed the rest of the dishevelled interior and spotted, amongst other messes, several more discarded bottles of cheap booze, some not even empty. As she noted the pungent alcohol in the fool's veins, it became clear that he had drank himself asleep. Nudging aside greasy dishes and pots with her boots, she picked her way to the laying man and knelt beside his shambled cot. An expression of agony was chipped into his face by a pain beyond physical.A folded card caught her eye. It laid silently atop a stool that the man fashioned into a bedside table, and the card had been handled so often that its edges were round and fuzzy, frayed away at the creased scars. She flattened and angled it beneath a streak of moonlight, letting the pale blue wash reveal the ghostly photograph of a newlywed couple. The young bride wore a bright smile, eyebrows arched with joy, and the groom a chirpier visage of the man who was now curled up asleep before the vampire.Taking a seat beside his little cot, she absorbed the intricacies of this barren room from his perspective. Despite the moon’s elegant framing within the window, its feeble light was only able to cut a muted blue grid onto the adjacent wall, leaving everything else untouched and to be engulfed by the inky darkness of the night. As she counted the intermittent drips from the leaking faucet, the vampire’s gaze lingered on the dithering window frame as she became more attuned to the darkness. Notes of grassland musk stirred into the heavy air of the shack as the wind creaked mournfully through the loose door. Beyond the confines of the old shack, distant whispers from wind-brushed grass soothed the grunting cattle and chattering insects. Yet, as she listened, the landscape seemed to grow into a deafening silence. She filtered out the percussive force of nature, and a wave of loneliness ate the vampire whole as she contemplated the solidarity of human beings in a world so alive. She sat in a buzzing numbness that shook her to the core like a boulder in an earthquake. The man’s chest rose and fell, oblivious to his fate, much like Elisabeth’s before him. The vampire shook out this contemplative daze, as she realised that a while must have passed as the hunger for flesh and blood bore into her stomach.She looked back and stared into the man’s neck, right where his jugular vein was pulsing. With focus, she tuned in to the steady throb of blood with each dire pump of his weak, old heart. She felt her heart drum in sync with his as she savoured the acrid sweetness of whiskey in his veins. Kneeling solemnly before him, she supported his neck as she angled it for the inevitable bite. Then, burrowing her fangs deep into his mortal flesh, she gave him the kiss of death. The man jolted awake in a bloody shriek. He wrestled against the vampire’s iron grip but she would not let go, no matter how hard he bit or scratched like a rabid dog. As she lapped away hungrily at the fountain of crimson that pulsed from him, the man’s furrowed brows softened and his kicks failed into weak twitches. Like a wounded rabbit, his life slowly seeped out, and in a twisted euphoria he thought that though he died in the arms of his killer, he died in someone’s arms nonetheless.Two weeks from then a travelling band would come across this old worn-down ranch and see the blackened bones of a cattle in the animal pen. They would knock on the dead man’s door and find him lying right where he died, his body too rotten for his visitors to identify the pair of holes from where the vampire took his life. Mustering up enough courage, they would move and bury him right beside Elizabeth, amongst the spindly elm trees. With that, they were reunited, but somehow lonelier than ever.

The Embalmer

a character and writing by my friend

For decades, I have worked tirelessly in these arid lands, my longing growing ravenous as each day goes by. I almost feel guilty when they bring me the young ones. Last Thursday - a girl by the name of Clementine, couldn’t have been more than seventeen.“Paint her lips red.” The man tossed me a small vial before turning to the door. “She liked to make herself pretty.”And pretty she was - even in her demised state, she was alluring. I brushed neat blonde curls away from Clementine’s cold cheeks to reveal her bare neck where she had been struck. It was so subtle yet pained me to an immeasurable level for she was always one step ahead of me, torturously unreachable.I reminisced of the blissful times before she had sent me on this eternal chase. I crave for her taste.You’re a sick, sick woman, I had thought, before I scalpelled Clementine’s abdomen and put her flesh into my mouth.It’s fresh, and I smell her. I smell her all over the body.

Bo Pager

They thought the old man had nothing in him, but it turns out he did.
Three boys, as ragged as they come, huddled in the corner of the office. The one talking had his knees drawn up, a blood-soaked rag pressed against his face, eyes raised to the figure leaning in the doorway.She was wrapped in pale leather, buckled and fastened by black straps. Her sleeves ran long and dark, tufts of fur over the sniper gloves that exposed her taloned fingers. She had no eyebrows to speak of, and stranger more were the stretch marks that scarred her cheeks, slurring her speech that made the boy listen more intently. Over dirty brown curls she wore a hat so white it caught the lamplight in ways that hurt to look at. It sat low and casted a shadow over her eyes, not that the boy dared to look into them anyways – he wasn’t sure if he’d find anything human in them.“What’d he look like?” the figure asked, the smoke from the cigarette curled up in the air thick with dust and sweat.“It was dark, ma’am. Couldn’t see much. We was scared out of our minds. He shot Tommy, you know. We ran. I ran.” He winced, voice cracking. “Got me right here, too. Oh– greasy long hair, it was all over me when he cut me.” His hand shot as he touched the gash that stretched across his cheek, still raw, still wet with blood. The others nodded in silence.“And what were you boys doin’?” came the same, flat tone.“I swear, ma’am, just lookin’ at his horses. Didn’t know they was his. Honest.”“Just lookin’...” she raised the part of her face where her right brow should be. One hand clung on to her gunbelt with a clawed thumb. The boy’s voice trailed off into a mutter, and the other two stared down at the floor like they’d find something there to save them.“Pager,” the sheriff interrupted as he swung into the office. “I heard what happened.” He peered past Pager and studied the sullen group of boys. The eyes of a blond one lit up. “You’re her. The Pager woman. Strong one. Ma’am, you gonna catch this man? What he did to us–”“Like I said, I’ll see what I can do.” She took one last drag from the cigarette, then flicked it to the floor, grinding it out under her dusty heel. “And stay out of trouble,” she pointed at the boys. With that, she gave the sheriff a nod, and turned swiftly out into the dark.