I spat and hissed as they threw me face-down into the grave dirt. The hole they put me in had been dug especially for me, in a place they hoped no one would ever find it.
With a stake carved out of oak from the Allerton Tree, they pinned me down. They pushed it through my back and, believe me when I say that I felt every creeping inch of it as they hammered the stake through me, piercing my heart; every splinter and rough-cut barb biting at my skin. The blunted point parted my ribs until they snapped, grating against the bone, until it was pushed clear through me and into the soil beneath my body. In this crude, vicious way, they bound me to this place.
My face pressed into damp soil, I only heard the murmuring voices of my captors. They had tried to mask their faces when they came for me, but I knew them all. Some, I knew very, very intimately. Then came the sound of digging, and the pattering of loose soil upon my clothes. I tasted every inch of cold, hard ground as they piled it upon me. I tasted the bitter, choking stink of it, as they sought to hide their deeds. Not that they had committed anything that could be considered a crime, at least to their understanding. To their minds, they were simply performing a moral duty. A punishment ordained by God, to scourge the earth of a living nightmare.
Soon, I was buried. All I could see, hear, taste, feel, was darkness. Every orifice rammed tight with grave dirt, a crushing weight bearing down upon me that rooted me to the spot. My eyes remained open, for I cannot sleep; I have never learned how to do so convincingly. Flints and Stones ripped at my delicate, fair face, until soon enough my eyes, nose and tongue were ground away to nothing. Meat for the worms, one might say.
I had grown careless. A year spent abroad, as a cigar maker in New Orleans, had given me ample time to indulge my most vivid appetites. In that winding, lost City, there had been no limit of waifs and strays to prey on like scurrying mice. And besides, nobody of any importance would ever miss them, once they were gone.
The iron-copper bite of freshly drawn blood is as heady as the darkest, richest wine. I always find that one tastes it before one smells it; it hits the back of the tongue, pricking the palate into urgency. The taste quenches both hunger and thirst, at least to my senses. It is as nourishing as the elixir of life itself.
I returned to Liverpool, to renew acquaintances with a dear old friend. Or, more accurately, his wife. I have a way with women, you see. As a man of some authority and charm, I have my pick of them all, from the lowliest chambermaids to the most delectable of high-born Countesses. And not one has ever been able to reject my advances. And those that have tried, well.. let us say I have my own special way of dealing with them.
‘A crime of passion’ is quite a fitting accusation, all things considered. The two of us were in the throes of passion, certainly, when I let the old blood-lust slip the reins. I was rather fond of her, I assure you. She was quite lovely, all of twenty-five years old and with that quiet beauty that sends shivers down my spine. It was a pity, in the end, that I stole her youth. Then again, she will make quite an exquisite corpse, laid out on the mortuary slab for all to see.
The husband found us, or rather found her first; it was only a matter of time before he put two-and-two together, and called for the constable. Of course, when they cornered me in my lodgings, they were quite certain that no police cell could hold me, nor any prison. In their small, primitive minds, perhaps, they saw me for what I truly was, and always will be: a parasite. A virus, malevolent and cunning, that sits in the dark corners of the world, just waiting to spread its contamination.
I spared her that, at least. She would have made a poor specimen of our kind. She was too kind, too gentle to have truly appreciated the gift. It takes an already cold heart and mind to endure this immortal rhapsody.
Do I regret any of my past depravities? Not for an instant. I have slaughtered babes in their mother’s wombs since William the bastard crossed swords with the Saxon King. And I would happily, eagerly do it all over again, a dozen times more, if I could. I know what blood looks like in the moonlight upon every corner of the earth; whether soaked into the peat-bog of a stinking swamp or sprayed upon the shifting sands of an Arabian desert at twilight. I will never lose the taste for it, never. I cannot outrun it, no matter what you may think. It is not a matter of self-control, self-deception, or mere self-indulgence. It is an instinct. You would not command a wolf to spare the life of its prey, after all. So in what regard am I any different in my disposition?
That is what you are, after all. Prey. Cattle.
I do not know how long it has been since I have been buried here. The worms have eaten away at my brains, guts, and bones. I exist as a kind of bloated, slurry thing, held together only by force of will. But still, I ache with hunger. And I taste the warm, lusty stench of blood from my grave. I hear nothing, see nothing, feel nothing. But I can still taste the old, familiar tang of it.
Hark! What’s that I feel!? A shaking, a scraping, a tugging and a pulling. The vibrations shake my bones, rattling the brittle joints inside my fetid carcass. Is it digging that I feel? Is someone coming to help me get out? I must have been here for, oh, I cannot tell… Decades? Centuries?
The feeling of earth lifting. Of rocks and soil sifting. Someone, somebody is coming. Perhaps quite by accident, they have found me. After all, I saw no marker upon my grave as I was tossed into it all those years ago.
I must show my utmost gratitude to whoever has found me. But first, I must make myself a little more presentable. After all, it is impolite to greet one’s rescuers if improperly attired.
(Influenced, in part by an article on the Old Swan vampire, Liverpool Echo 2009)
