Q: How did you become a vampire?
A: It was deep in the forest, in the middle of the night. I don’t know who it was. I can’t remember the face, but I think I know them. The bite came suddenly and didn’t hurt much – clean twin punctures above the collarbone. It was the feeling of being drained of blood that sent me into a panic. They left me to die in a nearby cave.
Q: Are these the clothes you were killed in?
A: Can you still see the dirt? I always wanted to be buried in something beautiful. The lace is all messed up now, but you have to believe me. I wish they had at least buried me.
Q: What happened next?
A: Hunger. Waking up, I didn’t know where I was. I didn’t know how to get home. A fox came by.
I’m sorry.
What nobody tells you about killing is that you can pinpoint the moment a living thing becomes meat. It doesn’t last, though. When I tore its throat open with my teeth, the fox cried and tried to bite me. Kicking its wiry legs, it was still an animal. Seconds later it was just an arrangement of bones and tendons and meat. I didn’t feel bad at first. I didn’t feel anything. I held it by its bleeding throat and bit into its belly, the softest part in its skinny body. The blood, metallic and warm, almost tasted like it could give me my life back. Only when I sated my hunger did I see its face, looking at me with glazed over eyes. It was a fox again. Though maimed and slowly going cold, it seemed like it would run off the second I let it go. I watched it carefully when I set it down and began to dig its grave. It laid still.
I fashioned it a cross out of two sticks, but it felt hypocritical, so I tore it down. What good is it to kill something and ask for it to be saved?
I had a cat when I was a child. A beautiful orange one, with a white underbelly. It loved to jump up at my desk when I wasn’t around and bat at the papers. I’d always come back to my room and find them scattered on the floor, some with paw prints on them. But it was just a cat, so I never yelled at it. One day – it was the end of June, I think – I found it in the garden with its belly torn wide open. Its guts were pulled out, ants marching in jagged lines between the intestines and gathering on the inside of its ribcage.
It reeked of rotting meat already, but I didn’t pay it much mind. I dug a hole in the garden, its thin little body right beside me until I was finished. When I buried it, I covered its grave with flowers and wept until night fell.
What’s dead can’t be saved, even if it’s supposed to have nine lives. Even if it’s wearing its best black lace. Still, it’s disrespectful not to give it a proper sendoff.
So I rebuilt the cross. I made it as neat as I could, with the straightest sticks I could find. I tried to pray, but each of the few prayers I could remember felt like talking to someone who wasn’t there. So I knelt in the grass and bent down until I felt the dew chill on my face. Had I been still alive, it might have been a relief, but dead things cry cold. The dew and the tears felt exactly the same. I said, “I know what I did. I hope you’ll be okay.”
Q: Is it true that holy water can kill a vampire?
A: Anything can be holy if you make it holy. A blessing is just a few solemn words. All the prayers spoken over water won’t change what it is. All the gravity of sitting in a church comes from the tall ceilings and echoing sounds.
I’m sorry. I got carried away. I don’t mean to take it lightly or say it’s all pretend. It’s more real than I am. What I’m trying to say is, it’s not a matter of a ritual, but rather of antithesis. How light eats away at darkness. You can make it poetic, of course. You can write all the hymns you want. Stay awake all night and I’m sure the first rays of sunlight will feel like more than just that.
I’m sorry. Again. I’ll only say what’s important and true now. Everything beautiful can be taken apart. Darkness is just an absence of light. Some things cannot be reconciled.
Q: Can I touch you?
A: It’ll burn.