The Vampire's Confession: Truth Or Con Sequences
Daven Anderson
Copyright 2012 Daven Anderson
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
Any resemblance between these characters and actual normal humans or vampires (living or dead) is purely coincidental.
Front cover: Photography, editing and design by the author.
Website: www.vampiresyndrome.net
Blog: https://vampiresyndrome.me
Dedicated to those who walk this world alone.
And to you, the readers.
Can I amuse you, scare you, even disturb you, in less than 3,000 words?
The answers lie within.
Chapter One: Details
My name is Damaren. My birth name, that is. Several times now, I've had to change the name I'm known to the world by. Why? I'm a 346-year-old Vampire.
To the Normal world, I look like a man in my forties. As I should. They don't think Vampires age, but we do. Just one of many details that you'll never find in Normal's stories about Vampires. One of a myriad of details that never occur to them.
Details. When you hide inside the Normal world, details can mean the difference between life and death. The difference between living a comfortable anonymous life, or being revealed as a "monster". And Normals just love to hunt for monsters.
I read all the books. I watch all the movies. The Normal culture molds the "vampire" into whatever they want it to be.
The mentality of the group consensus, tying into a shared higher consciousness, twists the "vampire" in ways I never could have imagined, back when I first turned.
Nosferatu, for example. A true milestone. It changed the Normal's consensus about "vampires". Before Nosferatu, the mythical blood-suckers of their group-think consciousness were only weakened by the sun, if that. Now it seems like every one of their "vampires" instantly fries the moment direct sunlight hits them. Ridiculous. Many a modern tale that I love otherwise is polluted with this sunlight disintegration horse-shit.
One thought refuses to leave my mind, taunting me.
I can write something better than their tales.
The problem is, would Normals think it was better? Their group-think mental picture of "vampires" has been twisted in so many ways over the centuries, they may not be able to relate to a thinly-fictionalized version of a true Vampire story.
Chapter Two: Mary
I want to tell my tale because of Mary. She knows. I don't know this woman personally, but she touched my soul. A lonely voice of wisdom online who's transcended her Normality and realized a piece of the truth. You put that piece of our truth on the Internet, Mary, seemingly to no response. You might think no one listened to you. The Normals may not have heard you, but at least one of us did.
You said in closing, "I don't want to piss off any Vampires out there." Don't worry, Mary. You didn't anger me. Far from it. I found you to be inspirational. You've given me a new reason to keep living this long, solitary life.
Just as Diogenes walked the streets of Athens with his lantern searching for the truth, Mary and her kindred souls search for answers. They hang their lamps in the deepest, darkest corners of the Internet, far from all the housewives posting pictures of their families on Facebook and Twitter.
I want the truth to be out there, even if it has to be in a "fiction" book. I want Mary to pick up my book in the store and read it. Or at least download it. When she reads it, she'll know. The veil will be lifted. Mary will be blown away, to the very core of her being, because she'll know my book is the truth.
That's why I've embarked on a new mission, as a writer. My book will be the best way to reach the few and proud Normals who can break out of the group-think and realize the truths about Vampires. Including the dull truths. The ugly truths. Yes, even the stupid truths. We're not gods, you know. We fail, too.
Mary will be the best publicist anyone could ever have. She will spread the news about my book far and wide. Not on the big social networks, but on the underground forums. Where it counts. The names of these forums I don't care to mention, but I know them very well.
If I'm lucky, my book will be for the many. But the truth is for the few. I'm writing my story to reach those few.
Those that truly hunger for the truths beyond their Normal lives search in solitude. Poor Diogenes never found the truth he traveled so long to find. I sit at my desk, writing my book, so the modern kindred of Diogenes will at last find the truth. Even if it has to take the form of "fiction".
Disseminating the truth as fiction will not be easy. Writing a book when you've never done it before is difficult. Getting it published is even harder. If you want editors and agents to take your work seriously, you have to play by their rules. Right down to your manuscript's twenty-five lines per page, in twelve-point Courier New font.
Yes, even a Vampire has to play by the rules. Baring your fangs at an agent would be very rude, you know. Not that some of these Normal authors desperate to get signed wouldn't do exactly that, if they were in my shoes. Good thing they're not. They'd get signed, alright, but they'd be Vampire hunter bait. Best to stick with being "fictional".
Since I want my book to reach the many, and I really want it to reach the few, I need the help of others. Other authors.
Published, unpublished, it doesn't matter. What matters are the insights of those who love to read, and live to write.
That's why I've joined a writer's group. A "critique group", in the industry vernacular. A group of writers who share my goal of getting their work published. A kindred group of souls, who thirst for others' insights to reveal qualities about their work they may have missed on their own. Or at least to hear some input from other people about whether your work is good, bad or indifferent.
Chapter Three: Memories
It's 5:40 P.M., Wednesday evening on East Colfax Avenue. I'm in a fast-casual restaurant, finishing my steak burrito. You were expecting me to be drinking from a jug of cow blood I got from the butcher? Steak will do. You can cook red meat until it's shoe leather, and blood will still be there at the molecular level. Another "insignificant" detail the Normals never think of.
God is in the details, you know. So is the Devil. And so are we. Fallen angels of the Seraphim, or a genetic mutation descending from space-alien DNA, it all depends on how you interpret the details.
I leave the restaurant and walk into the neighboring book store.
The Denver Novelists Assocation critique group meets in the basement level, at Seven p.m. sharp.
It's always a pleasure to see each week's new release books.
I remember this building when it was Bonfils Memorial Theatre. When you've lived in Denver as long as I have, the ghost of what was in a particular location leaps into your mind, vivid as the present, refusing to leave your head. I still see the horse stables on Wazee Street when I stroll in LoDo, something the Normals don't even imagine. They're too busy trolli
ng for the next bar, just like their cowboy ancestors did a century before. The bar-hoppers back then stabled their horses inside of what is now an office building. I can still picture the wooden wagons once parked on these streets, in ghostly images superimposed over the gasoline-fueled metal boxes now predominant.
Chapter Four: Inside
I step down the stairs, past the photos of famous authors on the wall. The rickety fold-up tables in the basement await our stories and our judgments.
The other authors in this group are all Normals. Of that, I'm glad. If two of us were here, we'd go nuts teasing each other whenever we knew something the Normals didn't. I can instigate enough mischief by myself, thank you very much.
I take the chair next to Debbie, our group leader. A charming young pixie with an infectious smile. Hard to believe she has a 15-year-old daughter who devours "vampire" books.
Debbie's always on me about how parts of my book are "too harsh" for the Young Adult audience. Obviously she's never watched "Heathers." Deb's afraid her daughter will read my book.
When I get critiques about my work, I always have to contend with the Normals' group-think about Vampires. A Vampire wanting to kill another of his kind "can't" be some bumbling oaf. The Normals will only accept the fictional version as some kind of "bad-ass". A Darth Vader. They forget that Vader was the Emperor's bitch for forty years. My villian is a real Darth Vader. Underneath his intimidating exterior is a perpetual Number Two, eagerly following the manipulations of his mentor. Normals focus on Vader's stylish black body suit, forgetting the tormented, conflicted soul of Anakin Skywalker within. Fancying himself as the molder of the universe, while being the clay for his Emperor's master plan.
Chapter Five: Alfred
Debbie announces, "The first of our readers tonight will be Alfred." A brilliant mystery writer, composing pulp prose worthy of Dashiell Hammett. To top that off, he sings in a barbershop quartet.
I love the nights when I share a table with Alfred, the life of our party.
"Tonight, I bring you a new mystery," Alfred says as he hands copies to each of us, "Murder on the South Platte."
Be more specific, my friend. There have been dozens of them, and those are just the incidents I know of.
"Based on a true story," Alfred fidgets with his handlebar mustache, "Last week, the body of a homeless man known only as 'Drunk Larry' was found on the river bank, northeast of City of Cuernavaca Park."
Fuck. Me. Not that specific. My stomach just tied in a Gordian knot.
Alfred says, "Drunk Larry's throat was slashed with such force, he was almost decapitated."
He didn't feel it. He was already dead.
"The cops think this was done by another homeless person."
They suspect that a lot. Not that I'm complaining.
"In my story, I present another theory about who killed Drunk Larry." Alfred's words sting my nerves like needles. I freeze in panic. "A ritual killing by Satanic youth."
My body relaxes. An overwhelming sense of relief rushes through me, calming my entire nervous system. I can't wait to hear Alfred read. For far more than the usual reasons. This time, I get to see how the master of conjecture stacks up to the facts.
"The vicious 16-year-old man-child wrapped in Gothic black marches down the Platte River Trail, fueled onward by his raging urge to kill."
Hey, lighten up there, Alfred. I was just casually strolling along. Looking for the right time, and the right person.
"Drunk Larry is nursing the last of his bottle when the youth yells, 'I am Abaddon, destroyer of the weak,' as he yanks the bottle out of Larry's bony, wrinkled hands."
How theatrical. Actually, I gave Larry the bottle of Mad Dog Twenty-Twenty they found by his body. No one makes better bait than Mogen David.
"Abaddon shoves Drunk Larry to the ground and chugs the rest of the cheap wine in one long gulp."
How rude. I wrapped my arm around Larry and told him the alcohol would numb his pain. The pain from the bite I was about to inflict on him, that is.
"Larry's eyes could only stare in terror as Abaddon pulled the Bowie knife from its sheath."
Drunk Larry had no fear in his glazed, weary eyes when I extended my fangs. He whispered, "I know what you are." I told him I was his personal angel of death, come to free him from the pain of his anguished existence.
"The tortured screams of Drunk Larry fell to no ears as Abaddon slashed his throat wide open." How dramatic. Larry surrendered to my bite with such serenity, I doubt Alfred would have even noticed if he had walked right by us at that moment. Even if he had, he would have though we were cruisers making out.
"Larry gasped for air, gurgling a river of blood as he dropped to the ground in the last terrible seconds of his life."
He passed in my arms, calm as a tired child going to sleep. I gently lowered Drunk Larry's drained body on the grass. If only they could know that I treated him with the dignity he deserved. I bought a quiet and peaceful end to his ragged, tattered life. If only others had treated him with the dignity that I did, his life might not have ended the way it had. At least the last soul he met in his life treated him with the respect denied him for so long. With sympathy for all he had been through.
"Abaddon heard the approaching sound of the police officer's Harley on routine trail patrol, and made a mad dash to the trees at the top of the hill." Finally, something true. I was going to drag Drunk Larry to my car, and take him to my secret funeral pyre in the mountains, for a proper send-off. The distant rumble of the V-twin on the river trail informed me I wouldn't have time to do that. So I pulled the Buck knife from my pocket, first cutting away the bite marks, then thrusting the blade several times across his throat before I had to run up the hill. I watched the cop dismount his bike and walk to Larry.
"Abaddon's friends embraced him at the top of the hill. By killing an innocent person in their sight, he completed his initiation in blood, and raised his rank to Master in his gang, 'Satan's Slaves'."
I strolled back to my car in LoDo, past the old flour mill that's now a loft building. I wonder if the yuppies in the lofts know or even care that their building was full of young street-punk squatters twenty years ago. Alfred's young gang would have been more realistic back then. In the early 1990's, a would-be "Abaddon" came running out of the abandoned flour mill in an attempt to mug me. The Normals' current expression "epic fail" comes to mind. The next day, the papers said a transient youth fell down the flour mill's grain shaft. It never occurred to any Normals that he may have been dead before the fall. That's what you get for trying to mug a Vampire.
Chapter Six: Irony
Alfred rests his paper, concluding his reading. The group loves it. They all smile as they jot notes on their copies. I'll give him a positive critique. Alfred's brilliant imagination has blessed him with the ability to craft spellbinding stories. Only I, of all at this table, know how ingenious Alfred's creativity is. He fashioned a story that couldn't have been further from the truth of that evening, if he had tried. Except for the "run to the top of the hill" part. An ironic detail.
Normals often miss pertinent details, because they want their mysteries to be something more colorful than they really are. The F.B.I. profilers said the "Unabomber" was driving around in an older full-size American car, in immaculate condition. Ted Kaczynski was actually riding a decrepit bicycle. Is it any wonder why the Normals never catch us?
Chapter Seven: Furtherance
As I write my comments on Alfred's paper, I ponder: What would really be the most horrific possibility imaginable about the Drunk Larry case, from Alfred's perspective?
Easy. He would be terrified that there was no horror. Only the merciful release of a soul tortured by life, and the momentary satisfaction of a thirst that never subsides.
"Brilliant story, Alfred," I write on the paper, "If the detective on the case could come up with possibilities the way you have, Drunk Larry's killer would be in jail by now."
Not really. They'd just be on more w
ild goose chases. Missing, or better yet, mis-interpreting, all the details.
Time is on our side, not theirs. The flour mill becomes a loft. The stables change to offices. The stories the buildings could tell, buried, their details known only to the few. And I am one of the few.
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See location photos for this story at https://vampiresyndrome.wordpress.com/2010/10/20/tvc-tocs-photos/
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