I didn't know it could be.

A vampire doesn't haunt. Instead he is haunted; by tales and memories by the company of death wherever he goes. A vampire never haunts.

As a member of the undead, I have come to discredit the supernatural completely since I am part of it and quite frankly, there's nothing supernatural about me.
I have lived for 700 years in various places, I have accumulated wealth and death and...that's that.

                      (painting by Benjamin Lacombe)


The story I'm about to narrate is different from the ones I usually tell, because the victim and pray is not some juicy, seduced youth but yours truly. In fact, to my utter disappointment, and I am sure to yours too, this story has no end since I am in still in the midst of it and have not decided how to proceed.

It all started a year ago.

After 20 years in the beautiful town of Sicamore feeding on the local folk and killing a few of them too, I felt it was time to either leave or die, and due to the fortunate fact that I hadn't died for a few decades, I decided the latter. Nothing fancy, a rather painless and unnotable death of accidentally jumping off the wuthering cliff at the edges of the city. I know it is rather dramatic, but it is the way women usually choose to go.
I had already done my search for a humble lodging where I could stay low for some time until it was time to move freely again.

The humble lodging in question is a forgotten, broken house in the middle of nowhere, one I found derelict, mouldy, all-surrendered to the nature around it.
I know what you think, this is definitely not a place for someone like me, yet, do not forget that my initial plan was to rest underground so I really couldn't care less of its aesthetic value.

Upon arrival, I noticed the small cemetary at the back of the house, but this was common practice in the old days and since I have nothing against the deceased, being a close relative of theirs, I made my small hole right next to them so that they could keep me company. 
On the very first night fall I felt all restless so I decided to look around what was left of the house which wasn't much to begin with.

So here I am sitting in a gutted, smelly, upholstered chair in the roofless living room, looking up at the sky go pale and then black, then the little stars popping here and there. I know you like that kind of thing too but don't get too comfy because then, one by one, they appeared out of thin air.

A young, silvery woman appeared right in front of me. My jaw dropped an inch.
She stares at me and raises an arm. I gasp as she slowly opens her mouth. Thick gore oozes to the floor. Did I scream? I really don't know and I hate to think that I did.
The young woman smiles at me and moves closer. An invisible something slashes at her wrists and she bleeds. Instictively I feel drawn to the blood dripping in front of me and I move a little but
just then a man materialises on my left. The woman is still looking at me.
The man has a big gunhole in his chest. So big it is, I can see the remnants of the fireplace behind him. The man fills me with disgust, his face is distorted, a fiendish face it is. It reminds of gargoyles and hell.

I try to collect my wits, I can taste the fear in my mouth and blood; I bit my own tongue. I start to move wishing to leave, to run perhaps but I cannot. Something mighty is pinning me to the damn chair. How terrifying this is.

"I cannot die." I say aloud. My voice is broken and smells of death.
"You cannot harm me." My voice falls to a whisper.
"You cannot harm me."

Then I see something silvery move in the dark. It moves until it comes under the broken roof. A young boy it is, not older than 10. And then all the blood I had in me retrieved in the most secret place of my body leaving me cold and helpless; for the boy has no jaw. His face is....
He walks towards me and what is that in his hand? A knife?
“What is this?” I shouted.
The boy looked at me full of muted accusations.
“I didn't do any of this.” I shouted.
The boy wants to hand me the knife. I can see his exposed tongue move, is he trying to speak?
I stretch my hand going for the knife but there's nothing there to take. My arm remains outstretched.

We all stay like this till morning. When the first sun rays hit the floor they all disperse and then I can move again.

It's been like this every night for the past year. You might be wondering why I stay but the truth is that I don't know. I have never felt so weak and helpless in my whole existence and to be honest, it reminds me of my living days when my father used to come from work drunk and take it out on me and my mother. I was that scared back then.

I know it is pathetic to have something like this make you feel alive again but there you are.

I didn't know it could be and I still don't understand how it is.

And that is the end of my story.

I love you.

"Talk no more about love

'cause love is everywhere

in our hearts, in our eyes

it's eating our lips

it's feeding on our eyes

and when we would have suffered enough

love will say 'goodmorning'

and then love will leave us

and will come back again

and everything will start all over.

Yesterday it was a dream,

golden rain.

Yesterday was the sea,

seagulls dancing with the morning.

Now it's silence,

now it's oblivion

and death

and it seems that the sky

extinguished all the blinking stars.

Your master is inside me now

but we have each other,

and you will never die.

Sleep tight little dolly

you have me now

talk no more about love

because your master's love is now within me

and I will love you always."

Affected. A story written by 12-year-old Ageliki.

A happy family lived in Boston in 1970. Every day, dad, mum and their daughter Alicia spent their time happily. Despite the girl being a teenager, her behaviour was very good.
She had long, blond hair and pretty blue eyes. Her cheeks was light pink and her lips were full and red.
The family was very polite but they didn't go to church and the girl hadn't been baptised. They believed in good but not specifically in God.
One day they girl felt very sick so her parents called the doctor. The doctor said that it was just a cold and it would pass in a few days.
But the doctor was wrong!
The girl was ill for one week. She started to change. Her beautiful eyes became big and red, her face turned wild and with many scars. When was talking, her voice was thunderous and angry, she knew everything about you, she could predict the future and she didn't sleep at all.

Her parents called the priest to come and see their child. When he arrived and saw the girl he said:
"Oh my God..It can't be. There is evil inside this child." Then he took an ancient paper and started reading it and reading it, all night, all day, all week.

The girl was swearing at him, she was throwing things and she was hitting him but the priest continued to read the paper. He was trying to take evil out of her.
Two weeks later the priest was reading the paper again. Suddenly the lights went on and off, outside it started to rain and an earthquake happened. A minute later all the things stopped and the girl fell down and slept quietly all through the night. The next morning the girl was normal again. The priest had taken evil out of her.
The parents thanked the priest and they baptised their daughter because they know that God could protect her.

The white Chariot.

There were only a few people who would argue the case of Mrs Elliot and even fewer who would question her beauty.
The daughter of a third class merchant, Adele, was taught by her father that personal security and prosperity are the highest goals in one's life. Needless to say that his  rules were almost as tight as Adele's corsets, leaving no room for breathing, let alone talking. At the tender age of sixteen, she found herself married to twenty-six years older Mr Henry Elliot, the local tycoon and slave driver, a charming upper-class womaniser who happily took Adele under his wing.

In the ten years of their marriage, Mr Elliot has turned richer, fatter and more disreputable than ever before, yet Adele's efflorescence has stunned the populace beyond repair.

The blasphemous cretin; he is the only one her beauty never touched, the only one who can ignore her adorableness, the only one not dazzled by her light. He is partial to bedding the filthy harlots of the harbour, and go to his wife drunk and begrimed whom she accepts without expostulation.
The word has it that it is because she never gave him an heir for his cotton factory. Barren, infertile, sterile they call her out of jealousy and spite but I know.

I know that I am the only one who can fill her womb with life. My seed inside of her will produce a dozen strong sons and a fairy daughter for I am young and full of burning love,
I am the one who knows.

(Lady Alice Mary Kerr, Portrait of Wilfrid Scawen Blunt c1870)


Who am I?

"Hello cousin!" she says whenever I find the courage to reveal my presence to her.
"Adele." I whisper and bow to peck her icy, gloved hand. Our eyes meet and then she pulls away.
"I intend to call on you and your husband..."
"But you never do.."
"I..."
"You don't like him..you never did."
"Maybe when he is absent.." I mutter.
"I do not think that's possible cousin.." she says and pulls away. I watch her as she turns round the corner.

If only was strong enough to kill the bloody beast.


In my sleepless nights, she walks into my room and lays next to me. I wrap my arms around her and keep her warm. Her belly is swollen and her breasts are ripe. She's mine and we are together. The room is breaking at the seams, the windows burst open and sweet, night breeze creeps under our sheets. She sighs softly and I weep.
If only I was strong enough for her, strong enough to kill the bloody beast.

I start to follow him at nights, I find no rest in my own room. So it happens that he is more corrupted then I thought; he gambles, drinks and smokes together with a throng of whores.

I sit at a table opposite him and in my head his neck bleeds dry, I see his eye sockets crack and empty on his vest, his guts already hung outside to dry.

(Claude Monet - Houses of Parliament)

I decided to rent a room in the building that faces her house. That way I will find out more about his daily habits. From my bedroom window I can see her silhouette walking back and forth. He's there beside her, her head is bowed, she nods and leaves...with tears no doubt.

Tonight she came into the bed and talked to me, she's never uttered a word before, only sighs and tiny sounds escaped her lips. Tonight she called my name.
"Wilfrid..." she said, not cousin Wilfrid. I am taking this as a sign.

The corset leaves deep marks on her pale flesh..
"I don't want you to wear this thing ever again...not ever, you are with me now.."
..............................................................................

It was midday when I heard his shouts, the window was open. He was screaming at her. I have discovered that he does this often, however, this time he is out of his right mind. Again not a sound from her. The maid sped to shut the windows and saw me staring in. I know she's seen me before but I don't care, I will be her master someday whether she likes it or not.

My spirit is dead, my fist shatters against the wall, I'd rather jump out of the window and die that endure this pain.  I lean and prepare to let go and right then I see something I had never laid eyes on before;
a white, riderless chariot with two white steeds is galloping on the High street below, whiter than the clouds, fastest that thought and then I just knew what I had to do and suddenly I felt strong.

There were only a few people who would argue the case of Mrs Elliot and even fewer who would question the brutal circumstances of her husband's death.

The local newspaper gnawed on Mr Elliot's severed limbs for months, even though  his murderer, or 'butcher' as the locals call him, remains obscure. Mr Elliot's head was found floating in stinking river Fleet while his torso and leg were scavenged by dogs in an alley near the flesh market. His two arms and left leg are still missing though. Even the butcher himself doesn't know why they haven't been recovered yet though, truth be told, he couldn't care less.

All the sawing, biting, flaying and gutting...Mr Elliot WAS a very beefy man you see... was worth it...she was worth it and she still is.

At the funeral, Mrs Elliot looked absolutely devastated in the arms of her beloved cousin, the only family she has left since the death of her beloved mother a few months earlier. Wilfrid has made all the necessary arrangements so that Adele is comforted, entertained and though she doesn't know it, she will grow in love with him and soon grow out of her corsets too...that is after all the miracle of love and the omnipotence of persistence.

La double vie de Veronique

Twin-flame soulmates.

Who are these people? Why are they smiling at me?

"Don't smile! Take the kids out of the room! Can't you see?..Can't you see? There is a man hanging above the dinner table! Stop smiling...

You disgust me! I went to all this trouble for you...do you know how hard it is to hang a man from the ceiling? What do you want me to do to make you see? Flay him? Gut him? Just because he's dead, it doesn't make him invisible...You rotten people! I am going to hang you next to him if it makes you see..Look at him! I SAID LOOK AT HIM!!"

There was a short, indistinct pop when my eyelids snapped open. I felt them dry and itchy whereas the rest of my body was swimming in sweat and shivering under the covers.

"Every night the same thing...when is it ever going to stop?" I wondered and looked at my pale face into the small mirror above the bathroom sink.
Cold, running water froze my hands and I twitched but then how else was I supposed to get rid of all that grime under my fingernails, I hate dirty fingernails...What is this thing anyway?

A thin, red film of a red, fleshy substance fell in the white bowl as I scrubbed the tips of my fingers as hard as I could.
"Maybe I scratched myself or something."
I lifted my pyjama trousers but my legs were intact and so were my arms and back.
On my way to the kitchen, I stopped and sniffed. There was that smell again, like a thousand dogs were rotting behind my walls. My empty stomach rolled in disgust and I started to open all the doors and widows of my flat to let some fresh, night air in.

(Photo by Aristotle C. Pramagioulis)

"Who are you? Why did you kill all these people and why do you come to my dreams every night?"
I ran to her, grabbed her from the shoulders and shook her with all my strength. Her head rolled backed and forth like a stuffed doll's but she didn't move nor did she resist. She just stared ahead with her big, brown eyes and suddenly opened her mouth in a great, long oh. It was all black inside, its thick inky stuff oozing out on her chest. It smelt of decay and I pulled back disgusted.

Then something inside her mouth moved. A black scorpion tail came out and rested on her cheek. I stared in terror at the thing.

"Why did you kill the two women and children?" I asked softly.
"I killed no one." she said but her mouth never moved.
"I am going to end this.." I said and felt the long kitchen knife in my hands. With swift movements I sliced her wrists and stabbed her chest, yet again she didn't move.
By now the scorpion had come out of her mouth completely. I bent closer without knowing why and it leapt on my face.
"No, no..." I shouted but the moment my mouth opened it went in it.

I choked, put my hands inside my mouth and tried to pull in out.
Nausea, horror and sharp pain.
I glared at her, still bleeding on her floor. "I hate you.." I choke.
"I didn't kill anyone." she mouthed, "You did."

My eyes snapped open and immediately the pain travelled down my nervous system, all the way to my feet.
I was standing. I was not in bed.
I was standing in from of the bathroom sink, covered in blood.
The big, kitchen knife was in the sink and so were three of my teeth..Had I pulled them out?

Blood was oozing from my mouth and and I fell on the floor, confused and horrified. The putrid smell reached my nostrils; it emanated from the very floor underneath me...under the bathroom tiles.
Vomit and blood escaped my mouth and I saw something moving inside it. It moved on the floor away from me and crept inside the crack of a broken tile.
It was a black scorpion.

Extract

(photo by Grande Ombre)

She bled for me. As I lay next to her, watching my body change, rejoicing in every bit of immortality that seeped inside me, the mattress underneath us soaked with the blood that her pores desperately vomited. Her head turned towards me, our hands still clutching and smiled at me.

“Don't be afraid, It will be over soon. Come closer...come, I know you are thirsty...feed on it. It's too much of a good thing.. don't let it go to waste.”

I pulled myself above her face and kissed her eyes. So sweet her blood was, it awoke a fire in me I never knew existed. I ran my tongue over her eyelids, her cheeks, her arms and legs. I sealed her mouth on mine and sucked hard. She gave me a small bite on my lip and I felt her body shake with laughter.

“Don't move, stay still.” I said “I don't want to hurt you”

“You can't hurt me. You saved me”she said and she coughed up more blood. Then a terrible sound came from her chest making her whole body convulse, like a landslide, a cracking sound and then her chest started to rise and fall rhythmically.
“Look...I need to breathe again..” she sighed and her eyes filled with blood.

Just then, my heart stopped. My greatest fear and horror materialising inside me.

I banged my chest with my fist as hard as I could though I knew it would never start again.

“Anna....Anna..wake up!” I shook her half-sleeping body. “It stopped, my heart stopped..”
She opened a set of heavy lids and looked at me from a dark crack underneath them.
“You gave your pulse to me, remember?” She pulled my hand above her breast and there indeed I could fill her heart pumping blood again.

“It's done” she said and let her eyes fall close. “Now, I need to sleep.”

I stood on the soaked mattress and looked down on her bloody body and ordered my feet away. The soles of my feet left the surface of the bed and I hovered.

(This is an extract from my book Venetian Red which has finally been completed and is in need of a blood- loving publisher who will set it free.)

"Call me on Skype."

"Hello, Can you hear me?"
"I can hear you but don't see you."
"The connection is not very good so I turned off the camera. It's OK...Do you have the material I sent you?"
"Yes, I printed the pages you ask."
"Oh, I can see the connection is better now so I will turn on my camera....Hi Cathy! Good to see you again! Today we are going to talk about food in different parts of the world..I hope you have already had dinner.."
"Oh, I have, it's 11 o'clock in the night here...what time is over there?"
"It's 5 o'clock in the afternoon.  So let's look at the first picture. This  photo was taken in Cuba. What kinds of food can you see on the table?"
I point to the first picture with my finger and look up at the screen. Cathy is sitting in a semi-dark room. Her head is low,  looking at the picture.
Then I see an older woman walking behind her. When she sees that I am watching her she bends low to the camera and waves at me.
"Cathy..who is the lady behind you? A friend?"
"Pardon?"
"There is a woman right behind you waving at me. Turn around."
Cathy turns around. Her eyes go through the woman like she is made of smoke.
"Cathy, right behind you. You are touching her now. She is right next to you."
"Don't joke Veronika. No woman here. I going turn on the light, wait."
Cathy walks away and the woman takes her seat. She smiles, waves again and straightens her skirt on her knees. Her face is wrinkled and her hair is as white as cotton. She is wearing a long, white dress, small pearls dangle from her ears.
"Who are you?" I ask.
The woman looks up and leaves the chair. Cathy is back in the room. She sits behind the screen and looks at the photo again.
"I can see that the people in Cuba eat many fruits and lots of bread..." she says. I look at the woman who is over her now, caressing her hair with long white fingers.
I'm losing my wits...Cathy keeps on talking but I don't hear what she says. I am scared shitless. How come she can't see the woman and I can?
"......like fruits...is that correct Veronika? Veronika can you hear me?"
"Cathy, there is a woman right behind you, this is no joke. I am telling you I can see her right now over your shoulder! Please DO something!"
"There is no one in the house...only me. Why you scare me so?"
"I am very sorry Cathy...."
She suddenly jumps up from her seat.
"What is it?" I ask "Can you see her?"
"I felt something...."
"She is right in from of you now. She has her hand on your shoulders..Cathy...you should leave the house immediately! Just go, leave everything and go!"
The woman looks at me angrily and mouths 'no'.
"She doesn't want to you go Cathy..she is holding you..What's wrong? Why can't you leave?"

I can see the woman pushing Cathy into her arms. They lock into a long embrace and then the woman is gone.
"She's gone, Cathy I don't see her anymore!" I shout.

"Well, this is nice. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic you know."
"Cathy?"
"No, not Cathy." the woman said.

"What do you want? Where's Cathy?"
"Oh, she's in here somewhere. Don't worry about her, I'll leave her soon; it's not her I want."
"What do you want?"
"I want to go home....and you, Veronika, like Cathy right now, are helping me get there."
Like smoke, the woman's face is emitted by Cathy's every facial pore. It glides towards the screen and disappears.
I get up and pull the plug of the laptop as hard as I can but the battery still gives it life. Smoke comes from the sides, like the laptop is on fire. I turn it upside down and yank the battery off the back. The screen goes dead and I let out sigh or relief.

"He who sows hurry reaps indigestion; haste is blind and improvident."

I turn around at the sound but no one is there.

"Thank God!" I say and sigh again.

The English Test

I am sitting with the English exam right in front of me. It is hard. It is boring and I am as unprepared as ever. I stare at the words, ordering them with my mind to reveal their secrets to me. I stare so hard until the letters start to move.
They float randomly on the page, dancing mellowly on the neat horizontal lines of the notebook.
It was then that I noticed a small, black dot right in the middle of the page. I bend lower to examine it more carefully. Is it spilt ink or a flaw of the paper? The more I look, the darker it becomes.
Like my grandmother's mole, it disturbs me immensely and trying to get rid of it I rub it with my sleeve.
Lo! It isn't a spot after all; it's a hole, a small gaping hole right in the middle of the page.
I wonder how it happened to be here.I never did anything to the paper to create such a thing! I bend low and place my eye right above it.
"Why..it isn't so small, is it now?" I can see right through it very clearly.

A peeping Tom I am, staring at the redhead woman's back! How fortunate that she can't see me; the small mirror in front of her is steamy, so she can't see behind her.
Hair hair is wet and long. I see her running a silver comb through it, in slow, repetitive movements.
How I love watching her mesmerized by her beauty. Squeezing both hands into the hole, I try to have a look at her whole body. Like a Goddess she looks, flawless and smooth and I gape at her silky skin.
Oh, how I long to touch it.

My whole head has slipped inside the round window, I am but a breath away from her now. Still, her silver comb slips through her fiery hair.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath; incense and sage, cinnamon and rosemary.

And then she stops. The comb is pulled out of her hair and I freeze.
She's felt my presence. I see her hand on the small mirror, she is wiping the mist off the glass.
I'm about to see her face, I'm going to see her face, the face of my queen in the hole, the face I am longing to see. She wipes the glass and smiles back at me.

(photo by Chad Michael Ward)

Something on her is terribly, horribly wrong. I want to leave now, I want to see no more of her. Her face is abnormal, her cheekbones exposed, too large, she shifts, she changes into something horrid and grotesque.
She turns around, there's a hole in her chest, gore sips out and a reptile's head emerges slowly.
I pull my head back as hard as I can but with a light swish and a flash of silver, she runs the comb across my neck.
Blood spills on my chest, I look down on my hands as I bleed and open my mouth to scream but the scaly thing has a strong hold of me. I can hear the sucking sound on my neck, I open my mouth to plead.
A small white dot on the ceiling ahead, so white, so bright, is the last thing I see and her eyes, her bloody eyes staring down on me.

Bloody Emma. A story written by 13- year-old Eva.

(photo from www.B177.ru)

Emma knew that after what she had been through, her life would never be the same again.

Ten years ago, she had gone on a date with Jim, the hottest boy in the world. She was in love with him from the first day at work. They had been dating for months, soon they were making out and finally, they got married.

At the beginning their marriage was a fairytale but then something terrible happened.
 Some nights he came back late. He told her that he was at work (he had told Emma that he was working as a waiter).
Although it was obvious that he was lying, Emma chose to believe him. However, the next day while she was looking for something she found drugs and cigarettes in a big, red bag. She was shocked!
As soon as she found them she packed her bags but when she was ready to leave he came in.
- "What are you doing" he asked her.
- "I'm leaving." she said.
- "Why?" he asked horrified.
- "I found these in a bag." she said and showed him the drugs.
- "I don't see anything..." he said
- " Are you a psycho? Why are you doing this to yourself...to us?" she cried back to him.
- "I'm sorry Emma. I can't let you go." he said and closed the door.
That was the first night he hit her. Emma still remembers this and is in pain. After that, she never left home again.
Once she tried to escape and he hit her again and that was the end of happy Emma.