The Vampire Killer Read online

  The Vampire Killer

  James Weber

  Contents

  I. The First Journal

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  II. The Second Journal

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  III. The Third Journal

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  IV. The Fourth Journal

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  V. The Fifth Journal

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  Chapter 101

  Chapter 102

  Part One

  The First Journal

  One

  In dark times, I was once an eccentric New York City detective with a fire engine red revolver underneath a fitted navy blue trench coat.

  And the night was my edge.

  But before I stepped into the night.

  I had a gut check.

  Why did I stop?

  At the time. I was in Brooklyn and doing Brooklyn things. I was doing what everyone else was doing, looking for a distraction from the voices that came with the night.

  I don’t know why.

  But, I could hear the dead far better when the moon hung in the black sky.

  Everyone could.

  They heard the voices too.

  I knew it.

  But, they didn’t admit it.

  Who would?

  You’d sound like a madman.

  But, if this is the kind of tale that you want, then a mad way, we go.

  Little did we know, that what was happening to us all then, happened before. When the night once engulfed the greatest empire the dead have ever known.

  Before I crossed the threshold of Emily’s apartment door and slipped out, onto the conveyor belt of dark nights...,

  I paused.

  The night came in many ways, I thought. It was something my mother used to tell me. She meant it as a warning, more than anything else.

  I felt anxious for some reason.

  Something was telling me to stay put for the night. Why? This neighborhood wasn’t so bad. Emily lived in Brooklyn in a brownstone apartment, a block away from the East River by the Brooklyn Promenade.

  Then, I thought about something I saw hanging by the door. There was a black framed photograph hanging on the wall, by the light switch. The moonlight gleamed over the picture of Emily and her husband. They held each other, while they stood against the railing of the promenade. The twin towers stood in the background.

  They looked happy in that picture.

  Indeed, the night did come in many ways.

  Tonight, her husband was away at work while I spent the night with her. How could I judge Emily’s relationship, when I was doing the same. Except I wasn’t married. But, the moments that I felt with her were just as messed up. I guess it didn’t matter if we were married or not.

  Dirty was dirty.

  The affair with Emily started a month ago when we ran into each other at Flushing Meadow Park in Queens. I knew her from the neighborhood. There was a laugh here and touch there. Since then, I never told her much about myself.

  As far as she knew, I was an eccentric New York City cop with a fire engine red revolver underneath my navy blue trench coat.

  That was it.

  Besides, I don’t think she cared to know anything more.

  She was married.

  So, I never told her about myself, not really. Why? I guess I knew, her path was her’s, and mine was mine. She never asked me about my hazel colored contact lens. She never asked for the real color of my eyes. Maybe, that was why I always fell in these kinds of situations.

  Little did she know, I had a talent, unlike anyone else. I could see the dead. However, the things that I could see, felt more like a curse, than a gift. For some reason, I was damned with a pair of eyes that sometimes saw the dead.

  For now, Emily lived in her world and I lived in mine. Just like it was suppose to go.

  Suddenly, I heard the wood floor creak behind me.

  I turned around and it was her.

  It was Emily.

  Shit. She caught me leaving without saying good bye. I turned around and saw her, standing in the hallway. Her body swayed, covered in a bedsheet.

  At first, I thought she was just going to give me a kiss goodbye. But, I was mistaken. Instead, Emily leaned toward me and tightly clenched my forearm.

  It hurt like hell when she dug her long nails into my skin.

  “M?” I said with gritted teeth.

  But she said nothing. And the blood began to flow from my arm and drip on the wood floor.

  But she said nothing.

  This was my fault, so I took the pain.

  “What’s the deal, M?” I asked .

  I tried to break my hand free. However. I could not pull away. Her nails were starting to rip through the sleeve of my coat. Then, she pushed me into the shadow of the door of her apartment and said, “James, you’re not telling me the truth.”

  “What are you talking about. Of course, I am.”

  “You’re not.” She continued, “Eventually, you’re going to face who you really are.”

  I looked into Emily’s dark eyes and I could not recognize her.

  “Come on, what are you trying to get at M?”

  Emily placed her hand on my chest. “James, you will see the world fall apart before your very eyes. There is no escaping the night. You know this.”

  “Jesus, Emily. Snap out of it, already.”

  Then, Emily’s eyes went white and she pushed me even harder against the front door. She got in my face and made sure that I paid attention to every word she said. With her right hand, she clenched my neck and dug her nails into my skin, again.

  She was strong.

  This was my fault. I knew it. This always happened when I dated a women for more than a month. Strangely, this never happened with Charlene.

  So, I took the pain. I deserved the pain. I just kept looking at Emily, trying to calm her with my eyes. Then, she leaned in closer.

  “Remember, never wake the dead.

  My arm and neck was searing with pain.

  “Wake up, Emily! Wake up!”

  I tried to to push her off of me, but couldn’t. She was unbothered, focused. Then, she leaned toward the side of my face and whispered in my ear.

  “At night, always remember to never lose heart. For love is the only chance you have to survive a time, when the night will never end.”

  All of a sudden, Emily released my arm. Her eyes were no longer pale white.

  “Why did you say those things, Emily?”

  “What do you mean, James? I’m saying good bye. That’s all.” She said in her cute little way, as if what happened, never happened.

  Thinking about it, I decided not to bring it up to her. The hallway was dark, so she never saw the blood from my arm on the wood floor.

  I knew from this moment that this was my last time here. There was no way that I could continue with Emily. I rubbed her narrow shoulder and kissed her on the cheek. I walked down the stairs of her brownstone apartment.

  And
just like that, the affair was over and that was the last time I saw her.

  However, there was something that Emily said that I could not forget.

  “When the night never ends,” she said.

  I needed to walk for a while. I needed some air.

  I walked through the Brooklyn Promenade and over the Brooklyn Bridge and all the way up the westside of Manhattan. I felt bad for cheating on Charlene and regretted getting mixed up with Emily.

  Charlene was such a good person. Her and I once talked about having kids. But lately, our relationship wasn’t going so well. She deserved someone better than me, I thought. But it was always hard to let her go.

  All of a sudden, I found myself walking up Manhattan by the westside highway.

  This piercing sound rang in my ear.

  I was thinking of a way to make it up to Charlene when a car horn scared the shit out of me. I turned around and saw a pair of bright headlights, speeding straight toward me.

  My heart sank into my stomach. But, a part of me wished that this life was over. Living with this curse was finally over.

  What the fuck.

  The car light shined in my face, and I felt a little relief. That night, I closed my eyes, waiting for the never-ending darkness to engulf me.

  Two

  At the last possible moment, the street racer sped past me. I was an inch away from having my spine shattered into a thousand pieces. The car moved so fast by me that the tail wind twirled me in place, like a spinning top.

  The whole time I was paralyzed by fear, letting the wind take me any which way. For a second, I caught a glimpse of the driver in the side mirror, a tattoo covered skinhead. His face was loaded with tattoos. He was young. He was probably the type that was in and out of prison. The driver looked like a ghoul driving at night.

  I caught my breath as the car sped toward a glass building. I had seen this car before in one of the magazines at the police station. It was a sleek sports car, a black and red Bugatti Veyron heading straight into a glass pate window.

  The driver lost control of the car and became more unbalanced, screeching side to side. Then it happened. The car flipped over three times, crashing into a glass building, which housed a fancy car dealership. The red and white security spotlights turned on.

  Hyperventilating, I made my way across the opposite side of the street and leaned against a bare wall of a warehouse. I sat on the empty sidewalk, half in shadow, thinking about the question that popped into my head, a question that I buried some time ago.

  What if I died?

  I promised Charlene not to think like that. Only she knew that I had issues. But I could not tell her everything. I told her that I had visions and that was all. I couldn't tell her the truth, that I could commune with the dead. That’s stupid cause then I’ll lose her.

  Besides, I was a freak, something that should have never been.

  Would I lie to myself like all the dead did? I hated thinking about it. But this life-threatening moment made me wonder who I would redeem myself for those three days after I died.

  Redeem the dead, even myself.

  Everyone had three nights to haunt the earth after they died, even me. It didn’t matter if they were Christian, Muslim, Jews, atheist or anarchist. Everyone got three days. Why three days? I never cared to ask. I only remember my mother’s words.

  On the third night, the dead rose into the light or fell into darkness.

  My mother’s favorite passage made me think about my father. He did not go away pretty, at all. There was a time when I saw my father’s spirit fall into a dark abyss. For three days, we walked the night.

  I wondered what I would do with those three days. What would be my act of redemption? Or would I just forget who I was, once I was on the other side and become nothing worth remembering.

  This question would have been my last on this earthly plane if the sports car coming at me like a machine out of hell did not miss me.

  I looked across the Eighth Avenue at the wreckage. From what I heard, the building popped twice. The car crashed into a glass wall and slid into a circular stairwell entirely made of glass. The glass came crashing down on the car. Shards of glass flew everywhere, spreading into the street. Plates of falling glass sliced one of the tires to shreds.

  Sirens whaled in the distance. I looked down the street and saw the police coming down the Avenue toward the scene of the crash. The red and blue emergency lights illuminated the canyon of buildings. Then, I looked back at the lobby of the building. Shards of glass scattered throughout the street.

  “Well, that’s a mess.”

  At that moment, I could have slipped into a shadow and disappeared. I should have. I didn’t want to get involved. It was late at night, and the paperwork was a hassle.

  I got up off the sidewalk and was about to leave before the police got there when I thought about the driver of the car. I was sure that the driver was dead. The car was totaled.

  No one could have survived that.

  But, I wouldn’t be sure, until I witnessed his ghost for myself. It was always that way. Then, another thought crossed my head. What if he wasn't dead? I had to make sure that the driver didn’t get away before the cops could get on the scene. They were about ten blocks away.

  I slipped out of a deep shadow and started walking toward the scene of the crash. The glass cracked under my black boots. The cops were coming closer, and the emergency red and white lights lit up the side of my face, highlighting the wildness of my hair.

  From my fitted blue trench coat, I pulled out my trusty fire engine red revolver.

  I climbed onto the showroom lobby of the car dealership and approached the black and red Bugatti Veyron.

  The closer I got to the car, the more I heard someone struggling. There was the crunching sound of glass as if someone were moving around. I pointed my gun in the direction of the sound and cautiously stepped forward.

  The driver squirmed out the car. His left hand was severed and laid a couple of feet from him. With the use of his one good arm, he made his way through the mangled passenger window. He reached out toward something black and covered in glass. It was a gun. He was so determined to shoot someone.

  I stayed quiet, keeping my gun trained on his forehead.

  Then, blood gushed from the driver’s mouth, spilling over the broken glass.

  He wasn’t going to make it. With that much blood flowing out of him, he was bound to pass out, then die. There was no chance of him, reaching the gun a couple of feet away.

  Suddenly, he screamed, “No!”

  He quickly grabbed the gun and made his crooked legs raise him from the ground. The driver pointed the gun at me, as he howled.