Crimson Shadow

I enjoy grave yards, I must admit, I find the very essence of the eternity they hold intoxicating. Weathered stones, denying time, ensuring the lonely wanderer like me will see the names of those who have passed on, and somehow bring their spirits back to life. I consider each name as I pass by; look at the dates and studying their life spans. Unlike most, I wonder at the full lives rather than the ones which have been cut short. In the existence of every man, at least one of life's mysterious will be shown in a new light. How bright must that light have become for one who lived until eighty instead of till ten. Every where you look, you see stone cold words, such as "A loving wife," or, "she died so young". 1

These stones mourn the most, because they offer nothing to a soul the guilt of grief, and bid it stay until the words can be washed from the marble face. Others are a celebration of the life force the soul carried, they give it a farewell and offer it finality. Then, there are the unmarked stones, set as centennials of unclean beasts that did not deserve such a burial, or as a guardian for those who could not afford one. 2

I was placed in such a grave. My soul escaped through the lack of words, but the body remained, encroached in the ethereal beauty of the damned. My skin was soft when the last of the decaying flesh rubbed off, my hands long and slender. My vision became enhanced like that of the starving, and that is the creature that I have become. No longer a being, but rather a sensation, I am the hunter, the wolf, the death of starvation for eternity, an unsatisfied  thirst as I part from, spiritual hell inside physical man. As I feed, I succumb to the momentary joy, but the instant jowl's part from flesh, I once more I am alone. I feel the lacking of myself deep within me, every part stripped except my conscience. The knowledge of that which I do is wrong coupled with the inability to do what is right. If I ever this flesh and bone where ever to turn to dust, there would be no loss, no pain within me, for I am this body, this shell which fills it's cracked clay with wine, only to thirst for more, and I would cease to exist. For without himself, man is nothing, so I am no man, but an animal. I lack the ability to love, or to recall the sensation, but unlike a dog, I am capable of dreams. And there's the rub, that I can envy the life which evades me with every vein I suck, every heart I force myself inside of. What remains here is not the evil in me, for that was part of my soul as well as the good. What remains is the desperation, the eternal hunger of which I speak.3

I was born in the village of the damned, child  of a gypsy . Spirituality put on display, a parade of misfits the authorities called them. I say them, because although I was part of my family, I did not consider myself to be a side show freak. I was an ugly child, this is true, hairless, withered skin. An old man before4

my time. Thin tongued and knobby kneed, they told others I was their serpent, but within the bonds of family I was loved and called Child. If I was born with a real name, if I came into this world as a normal child, I don't know. Perhaps, having received no birth name, I was doomed from the start. My family has always believed that a   mans life is set in stone before he is born. If so, I was born the nameless, hairless wonder. Disgusting and damned for sins I did not yet know existed before I learned to walk.5

I never really did walk, though, instead, I slithered. My left leg was stiff, and followed me along the6

ground, pet servant to my right and its chained. I once tried to sever that foot from my body. I thought that if the disjointed member were gone, I would fly away home on my right leg. I would soar away from the circus in the valley and back to the mountains of England  where they found me. Beyond the time I tried to sever my foot, I remember nothing. I recall only the desire to return to the life and family I never knew. At the time I had created for a myself a world that I came from, with people crippled like me, who lived with out fear, where one could carry strength in the weakness of another. Now I am certain there was no life before that. I feel now as if I may have always been a demon.7

On the day I tried to release myself from my own flesh, an experience I would soon and successfully repeat, my older brother followed me out to the woods. He was a handsome man, fit in his youth, now radiant in middle age, a father of three aspiring fortune tellers, the picture of gypsy traditional values, if such exists writhing this world. Pietro found me in the out by the hole we'd dug for the latrine together. My useless leg lay8

propped upon the wood chopper, my torso on a tree for balance. Haphazardly I yielded a saw over my shaking muscles. He watched me for sometime, I certain trying not to laugh. I could not physically lay down the weight needed to complete the operation, and so he knew I was in no danger. Only when my body began9

to buckle under the strain of my failed attempts did he emerge from his hiding place.10

Without saying a word, Pietro, gently took the blade from me and laid it out of my reach. I bit my lip, shaking more from the embarrassment of being caught then the actual attempt at mutilation itself. With a hand  from Pietro, I sat upon the slightly bloodied tree stump. Still working silently, he bound my wounds with  my torn pants, taking greet care not to jolt me. When the job was done, he removed the long leather jacket he wore11

and placed it upon my shoulders, and gesture which commonly meant he would spare my pride by allowing me to hide my wounds. Gratefully, I watched the strong man of the broad back moving away through the shadows, back along the trail towards camp. Although it was mid December, what I then felt was the warmest moment of my life. To this day, I remember what a heart feels like from that experience alone, watching the one kind moment I've ever known walking away, leaving me in an aura of safety.12

I’ ve never forgiven  fate for what happened. The warmth was broken by the blast of a cold scream echoing across the foothills of the valley. The sound rose in pitch, from dull surprise to screeching agony, then dropped into a bloody gurgle. A snarl and13

the gnash of teeth, the sound of bodies crashing, of flesh being torn from the bone. Enveloped in a fear that would have motivated a strong man, I pushed myself up and moved towards the noise in the agonizing slowness of a nightmare. It is what I don't miss, the lethargy, the helplessness of a form gone terribly wrong.  Death was only a few feet away, so close I could smell it, so near I could touch it , perhaps send it away again, if14

I were but a strong man.15

I was not, however, but weakness. Weakness, and shooting pain up my left side, and confusion, and black hatred for myself as well as this death. Fear I could have conquered, but not this. An emotion as raw as hatred, despair , agony filled my marrow and drove bile to my throat.16

"Pietro?" I croaked, pushing through the foliage, foot catching on branches, slowing me further. Fear made my face numb; pain turned my voice to a cracked whisper.17

"Pietro!" I cried hoarsely, not nearly enough to be heard over the ensuing battle.18

It was then I heard a loud pop, the snapping of a thing bent too far the wrong way. A series of howls rose into the night air. I knew these wolves. They'd hunted about our encampment for days, feeding upon our scraps of meat. This act of contrition had apparently not been enough to satiate them. Little did I know, as the anger filled my bones, that these same beasts would one day be my brothers. The wails of the creatures19

came closer, moving me forward as I came to meet them. The sounds dispersed, traveled around me through the foliage, then back into the depths of the forest. I did not understand until much later why they did not take me as well. With our sense of smell, we shadows of the night can taste another. Knowing they'd broached my territory, the animals whimpered in cowardice behind me .As quickly as my leg and anxiety would allow, I pushed my way through to the thinning trees, out to20

where the edge of the forest met our camping grounds. In the dusk of the evening, the colors of world were muted to deep browns and grayed crimson, but the lack of vitality in the vision couldn't mask it's horror. I see each detail even now, as I close my eyes I find it imprinted upon the lids, a picture I bought with my21

uselessness that I never can take down. The green canopy of the trees reflected in shadows, the wind playing the leaves, shifting the lighting so that I saw the body in pieces, disjointed as if through a camera shutter, the picture flickering, as if the body were writhing. As if Pietro was  still alive. To this day I wonder if he was, although logically I know this could not but true, for there was blood all around, black blood and clumps of hair, wolf hair, his hair, stuck to my trousers, stuck to my shoes. Bones, gleaming white bones in black and gray backing, a stark contrast to the dark night, white except for the flesh which lung there. My golden brother's flesh.22

All the while the earth began to move faster, too quickly for my death muddled brain. Death clung to my mind, attacking my spirit. Only once since then have I felt death so strongly, so vivid that I could not let it go. It began to drag me under, all though my heart still beat at a frenzied pace. Slowly, despite the worlds swiftness, I sank to the ground, not falling, but flying. Flying down the hill and into the camp, blood on my hands and face, but I don't recall touching the body. The bandage had fallen from my leg and my clothes were torn, irreparable, I thought, foolishly.23

The others sat about the fire, watching me approach, staring like dumb animals as I called to them, as I told them to take Pietro from the mountain, take what was left before the wolves could finish him. Still they stared, all dumb animals.24

“'Why are you watching me?!”  I shouted. Then I was ten feet away, then next to25

Marissa.  Marissa, the other one who wasn't part of them. Marissa, she'd know what to do. I started for her, and she rose to meet me, took my hand and led me to the tent, all the while I blubbered and screamed and demanded the men destroy the pack, demanded they avenge our brothers' death. Marissa  sat me on her bed, a mat stuffed with fine down, one she'd made herself. In my state of shock, I could feel each satin stitch, could admire the strength of her handiwork. I found it oddly comforting. Still, I tried to rise, had to tell the others, had to make them go. The tiny hand she placed on my forehead might have been a brick, for all I could move away from it. Two warm fingers brushed the bridge of my nose, brushed my eye lids down. Try as I may, could move these neither. 26

Useless. Weak. Useless. These words drove in my mind, drove in a beat like a horses hooves, screamed like an angry mob. Then the screaming was audible, and I could sense torch light. The men were rising to fight.27

"They move," Marissa  assured me softly, inches from my face, "do not fear. Sleep, young one. I will tend your wounds. These wolves teeth cut deep. Sleep."28

Wolves’ teeth? I had not been attacked. Surely I would know if I had, but shock had been known to kill a man before he knew he'd been injured. Confusion set in deeper then before, dragging my mind further into the myself, melding it further within me, calling it again to become part of me, but not removing it from29

the death completely before I fell into black.30

An awareness of good an evil. A strength of the beautiful pairing so strong it divides the mind and burns the soul. That is what it is like to become a vampire. When the breath is gone from the body, the last waft of air passes out and the eyes dilate to allow the passage of the soul, when the body is cold but is filled31

with a wondrous sense of 'hollow', a glorious guiltlessness that is one step below salvation; eternal damnation. Then the body collapses in upon itself, crushes the glory and turns to death, and all you want, for eternity, is to be filled with that emptiness, like a bubble that expands the shell and allows for clarity. The eyes of the hungry are yellow as a wolf, yellow as an animal because they too have no soul. A thirst for human death, to live the death again, to feel that moment of purity through another, through the taking of that life, the drinking of their blood. It is a love shared, one greater than that of man, one born of sin in the Garden, is the love of man and perfect man. Perfection born in the instant of soullessness, but lost directly after, when the body begins to die and there is no hope. No hope but for the eternal to find the next kill, to share the next love and to experience perfection again, like a drug.32

I watched the rain sigh its way through the whispering leaves on the day they buried Pietro there was not much left to bury, really. A few bones, some scraps of clothing, all fit into small wooden box very much resembling a hope chest. I found it difficult to pay attention to the funeral, my mind seemed detached from33

the experience. It was rather like a memory, or a dream, floating about me but insubstantial, unfeeling. 34