My Son Gunther

I paced outside in the parking lot, agonizing.

To spend a lifetime with a Catholic was the worst possible punishment an old gypsy witch woman could’ve possibly placed on a vampire. It could’ve have been a Jew or a Muslim or a Buddhist or a pagan or hell, even an atheist. But no. It had to be someone who associates with crosses every second of every day.

I was really in trouble. There were even crosses set into the frosted glass of the goddamned front doors. I couldn’t even get near them without feeling like I was walking into a nuclear reactor.

Molly had taken Gunther in there to pour holy water on his head, thus welcoming him into God’s kingdom.

I had fought her on this every step of the way.

I’d had a good life. After centuries of making love to the night and lapping the sweet warm life that flowed from severed jugulars, karma had caught up to me. I’d murdered the virgin daughter of a woman who turned out to be a gypsy witch. Bad break, that one.

Rather than stake me or kill me with a spell, she decided she’d inconvenience me for the next 60 years or so. I was to fall in love with a Catholic woman named Molly. I’d do anything to be with her, to the point of self-abuse and mutilation.

I laughed at the witch bitch. I’d never loved anything, alive or undead.

But then I met Molly the next day at Subway. I was getting my usual — drinking the blood of the night shift manager girl — when Molly came in and asked for a footlong turkey on wheat. I’d forgotten to lock the door. The place wasn’t even open.

Normally Molly would’ve joined Brenda as part of my feast. But instead I was smitten with her. I wiped the smears of blood from my face, hands, neck and chest, leaped over the counter and introduced myself. Molly was 28, cutest little thing you ever saw, a paralegal who had recently broken up with her beta of an ex.

“I can’t let you eat here,” I told her. “We’re going somewhere fitting of your beauty.”

She was so charmed, I’ll bet her vag was buzzing like a smoke detector. I wined and dined her that very evening (not literally, though, I can’t drink wine). I never did go back to that Subway.

I didn’t think much of it at first. But something weird was happening. I didn’t want to feed on Molly. Like, ever. Not even when she was fully naked and spread out before me like a buffet, vulnerable and freshhhhh…. instead I wanted to do things like allow her to order me around and sit and bask in her womanly aura, inhaling her flowery scent. We’d spend hours on the couch watching Netflix, entwined.

The sex was otherworldly. Outside the bedroom Molly was a demure angel strumming a harp. Inside the bedroom she was a screeching demon shredding on a Fender. Holy fuck, her pussy game is ridiculous, you have no idea.

I stopped drinking blood altogether. Every moment was for her. I stopped going out at night. I moved in with her. I allowed her to display religious iconography, including a crucifix that I had to shield myself against every time I walked in the front door.

I proposed to her. My dick told me that the wedding wouldn’t be that bad.

It was. I was able to convince her to hold it in a nice open field at night, but the second the priest showed up I hissed at him involuntarily and caused a really awkward scene. Plus, all the guests I’d invited creepily eyed Molly’s female relatives to the point that I had to pull them aside and tell them to knock it off.

I made it through the ceremony, nearly passing out when the priest did the blessing. But I made it, and I kissed Molly on her gorgeous Catholic lips and carried her through the doorway of our new home and tore her wedding dress off and fucked her like the Supreme Court is going to fuck the working class once RBG kicks the bucket.

Nine months later, we had Gunther. I named him after the vampire that sired me. He’s half-vampire. He’s sensitive to sunlight but can go out during the day. He has an uncanny ability to crawl up walls and he was born with black hair in a widow’s peak and his canines are a little too long, but other than that he just looks like a normal baby who happens to know how to walk at only 8 months.

Molly was thrilled. She’s already teaching him how to read. He finished To Kill a Mockingbird the other day. He can’t quite talk yet, but he can write pretty well.

Now, she’s getting him baptized, and I don’t know how he’s going to react. Molly insists. We had the biggest fight of our relationship over it last night. She can’t understand why I won’t allow it. I finally said fuck it and tried to tell her I’m a vampire but the witch’s curse won’t allow me to speak the truth of the matter. Fuck that old hag, seriously.

I stop my pacing, look across the parking lot to the front of the church and wonder what the fuck I’m doing out here. Almost 500 years old and acting like a total pussy-ass bitch.

I set my jaw and start walking. If this is going to happen I’m at least going to be there for my infant son.

Crosses and holy icons feel like a really intense sunburn to vampires. They won’t kill you the same way sunlight will, but they’ll hurt like a bitch for days on end. Holy water is like acid. I’m fully expecting Molly to come out screaming. I don’t think the holy water will kill Gunther or melt away half his forehead, but he’s going to get a nasty, nasty burn, and it’ll all be my fault.

At least I convinced Molly to do this at night,I think to myself. The doors get closer and closer and more and more painful. The crosses are such a simple shape, it’s amazing that any incarnation of them can feel like standing next to a chemical fire.

I make it to the doors. Through the burning sensation, I reach out and touch the door handle. I open it. I can hear organ music. I walk through the lobby, avoiding the landmines — holy water fountains, crosses fucking everywhere. I put my shirt over my face like someone trying to avoid a bad smell, make it to the other side of the lobby, open the doors to the church itself.

Oh, God.

The inside of the church is a massacre. There is blood everywhere. The pews are painted with it. The altar is painted with it. Jesus’s face on the big crucifix behind the altar is painted with it.

I look for Molly. She’s splayed over the altar with the priest. They’ve both had their throats chewed open.

Literally everyone in here is dead, this entire ceremony, all the witnesses, mostly old people. They’re all strewn about the pews. I can’t believe I didn’t hear anything outside.

I look for Gunther, and find him. He’s the one playing the organ, his black hair gleaming in the candlelight.

He wouldn’t let them do it. He slaughtered them. I observe Gunther’s carnage and can’t believe how proud I am. I don’t even notice the burning anymore. He’s awoken something in me that’s been dormant for years. A thirst.

I watch him play the organ, blood splatters and human guts and shreds of skin all around him, and I feel like this is a wide new beginning. He murdered a priest and his own mother and a church full of seniors, rather than be baptized. I’ll miss Molly, but I lived 400 years before meeting her, so…

Gunther turns and sees me. Smiles. He’s not even a year old but he’s sitting up on his own and playing the organ and slaughtering entire churches worth of people and reading Chauncer.

We don’t need a paternity test, folks. This kid is my son.