The Life and Undeath of Sloane Campbell (Asylum Last Interlude)

Do you want to know how I became a vampire? Many people believe it is a transition thrust upon an unwilling victim, forged by a violent and bloody attack. That was not my experience. Perhaps a more interesting question to ask would be why I became a vampire.

*

I let myself into Lucy’s flat using the spare key she had gifted me. The place was silent and cold, the air heavy with a distinct odour. Tangy. Visceral. It reached the primordial part of my brain that warned of danger. Nevertheless, I pressed on.

Lucy and I had not spoken in five days. Even when she had taken an impetuous trip to Iceland three years ago, we had kept in touch daily. This was the longest in my life we had not seen nor messaged one another.

With a pounding heart, I walked along the short hallway. The stench grew stronger with each step. It filled my nostrils, coated my throat; it turned my stomach both with its acridity and the meaning it portended.

I recognised it even before I passed into the lounge and saw the darkened scarlet hue splashed across the floor, the walls, the ceiling. Lucy was sprawled on her sofa, her skin grey, her open eyes dull. On the side of her neck, her throat bore two jagged punctures.

The wounds writhed and pulsated. For a half-second I thought she was still bleeding, that I may yet save her. Until something the size of a grain of rice tumbled to her breastbone, quivered then began crawling back up. My hand shot to my mouth as I watched the creature climb back to its maggot brethren.

*

My next coherent memory is of a female police officer guiding me from the flat. She drove me to the police station where I was checked by a medical professional, given copious sugary tea and commended for my actions. I had apparently called 999 and left the scene untouched. It seems that listening to all those true crime podcasts had ingrained something useful into me.

‘How did you know Lucy?’ the officer asked. She was sitting at my side, her black coffee beside a notepad on the table before us. She’d introduced herself as Cara and said she’d keep me company until I was emotionally strong enough to leave. I knew her real intention was to glean information from me. I was young, not naïve.

‘She’s my aunt,’ I answered, still using the present tense. When would that begin to feel unnatural?

Cara didn’t bat an eyelid. Most people were taken aback when they learned our relationship. Lucy was my mother’s youngest sister and only seven years separated us. She was old enough to be a real adult yet young enough to have not become a stuffy grown up. It was Lucy who expanded my taste in music and took me to my first Dead Again gig.

‘Was she well liked?’

‘She’s a free spirit,’ I said. ‘She loves everyone and is passionate about everything. As far as I know, the feeling is mutual.’

A frown creased Cara’s face. ‘So who would want to hurt her?’

It was asked conversationally, I’ll give her that. But she was quick to pick up the pen when I said, ‘I know exactly who killed her.’

She took notes as I told her about Vlad, the man Lucy had met three weeks earlier. Like her, he renounced societal norms and dedicated himself to hedonism. Their passion was instantaneous and intense, burning bright and fast.

‘He admitted it the first time I met him,’ I told Cara.

She looked at me, disbelief in her eyes. ‘He told you he was going to kill Lucy?’

‘Not in so many words. But, looking back now, I can see that’s what he meant.’

‘What did he say?’

‘He confessed to being a vampire.’

*

Vampires weren’t real, I knew that. It was out of respect for Lucy that I tempered my reaction from outright ridicule to mild amusement. Vlad wore black velvets and purple silks, and had a penchant for using dark eyeshadow and scarlet lipstick. I thought he was nothing more than a Twilight wannabe.

But now that Lucy was dead, I knew I had been wrong. Forget that vampires are nothing but folklore – I had seen the blood, the area of the injuries. Vampires were as real as the sun rising and setting every day.

When Cara asked me to describe Vlad, she jotted down the details but I could tell she was picturing Christopher Lee or any of the other screen portrayals of Dracula.

She asked me more questions – where he and Lucy had met, did he have any friends, what did he do for a living – but there was no more information I could provide. As far as a credible witness went, I was worse than useless. All I could provide was a mononym, which was probably an alias.

I later learned that forensics taken from Lucy’s flat identified an unknown male but there was no match in the national databases. With no clue to his actual identity, the police had nothing to go on.

Vlad got away with Lucy’s murder.

*

After the funeral, I went off the rails. It’s a cliché, I know, but my life descended into a miasma of drink and drugs and sketchy friends. There are whole months of which I have no memory. It’s honestly a wonder I survived that time unscathed.

Shortly after the third anniversary of Lucy’s death, I hit rock bottom and ended up in court-mandated therapy. Following a twenty-minute assessment with a bored-looking woman, it was decided I should attend group therapy. I was led to a room with a dozen easy chairs arranged in no particular order. Five faces turned as I entered, each with warm smiles and welcoming eyes. Nothing like I had expected. I wondered if I had entered a cult rather than a psychiatric session.

A man in his mid-forties rose and took a step forward. ‘You must be Sloane.’

I nodded, tongue-tied in front of these strangers.

‘I’m Marcus,’ he said. ‘I lead these healing chats.’ He proceeded to introduce the others – names delivered too fast for me to commit to memory – before holding out his hand.

My reaction was unconscious, automatic. I reached out. Our palms touched.

Maybe it was the cosy room or the comfortable greeting. Maybe it was Marcus’s genuine smile or the warmth of his hand in mine. Maybe it was the feeling of acceptance that emanated from everyone in the room.

Whatever the cause, a burden lifted from my heart. A tightness in my chest eased, one that I had lived with for so long that it had begun to feel normal. I felt I was breathing for the first time in years.

*

Marcus did not cure me. There is no cure for grief, not even time. Even after all these years, Lucy was the first person I thought of when I heard juicy gossip or wanted an opinion. Each time the loss of her pierced my heart. The only thing that changed was that the pain grew so familiar it became normal. Just another wound to deal with in this perpetual assault we call life.

What Marcus helped with was the stripping away of negativity. Lucy was dead and would always be so. I would miss her as keenly in twenty years as I did the day I found her body. But I could change how that affected me. He taught me to remove the layers of torment, of guilt and anger, until I could face life without her in it.

The one thing that I couldn’t come to terms with was that her killer was still out there. Vlad was a free man. Justice remained unserved. No amount of comfort from Marcus could still the rage that this instilled in my soul.

*

The sweat that beaded my forehead reeked of garlic, the result of infusing it into every meal I’d had for the past week. On my chest lay a silver crucifix, suspended from a thick chain about my neck. In my jacket pocket sat an evian bottle, the liquid replaced with holy water. And in my hand I gripped an eight-inch stiletto dagger.

The blade was my one deviation from folklore. A wooden stake was the traditional weapon used to despatch vampires. But realistically, how useful was a short piece of timber in a fight? The dagger could be plunged into an undead heart as easily as a stake and had the added benefit of being a menace to other body parts.

I transferred the knife into my left hand and pulled a snap gun from another pocket. I’d heard of these devices during my dark years and it had only taken a couple of visits back to those haunts to find an old friend willing to sell me one. It was shocking to learn that owning a snap gun was legal – only using it without authorisation was against the law.

Two thin strips of metal extended from the barrel of the gun. I eased them into the lock and pumped the trigger. The gun vibrated as the air pressure within increased. My hand started to ache. I wondered if I had been sold a dud.

The vendor had explained the mechanics of the machine – using terms like pins, tension and shear line – but I hadn’t followed. I don’t understand how the inside of a lock works but I know how to use a key.

I squeezed the trigger a few more times, my determination greater than the discomfort. A minute or two later I was rewarded with a sharp hiss of releasing air and the grating of metal on metal. The door swung open. I was in.

I crept inside, clinging to the walls. A TV was on and the sound masked my movements. I stalked through the kitchen and glanced into the rooms off the hall. The ground floor was clear.

At the foot of the stairs, I took a moment to steady my nerves. Somewhere above me was the monster that had taken my aunt’s life. Was I ready for the confrontation? Did I have the strength to end him? The only thing I knew was that one of us was going to die tonight – and I didn’t really care which one.

I climbed the steps, forcing myself to breathe. Reflected light from the TV screen spilled through an open doorway. I inched closer and stopped at the threshold.

From the TV, a man asked, ‘What do you people want?’ and was told, ‘Just a couple more minutes of your time, about the same duration as the rest of your life.’

To get a look inside, I popped my head around the doorway and pulled back almost immediately. I was quick, but not quick enough.

‘Who’s there?’ Vlad called. Was that fear in his voice?

The TV was silenced and the mattress groaned as Vlad got to his feet.

Now that I had lost the element of surprise, I turned to speed. I sprang into the room, shoulders high, and lifted the crucifix before me. Vlad’s eyes widened as I marched forward. His mouth curled into a snarl as he flinched away from me.

Emboldened, I pushed forward. This was going to work. The symbol of Christianity held power over him.

He backed away until he reached the wall. I followed. There was no escape for him.

I couldn’t suppress my vicious smile as I moved nearer, holding the crucifix between us. Vlad twisted his head as my hand drifted closer, closer, until the cold silver pressed against his colder cheek.

Had I been expecting a physical reaction? Sizzling flesh, cries of agony? There was nothing but for a single tear which spilled from his eye.

‘Show me your fangs.’

‘I can’t,’ he muttered, then opened his mouth and drew back his lips. A mouthful of human teeth, too white not to be veneers.

My stomach rolled. The sudden shift from determination to doubt had a vertiginous effect. The room seemed to recede and my legs threatened to buckle.

What was I doing here, in a stranger’s bedroom in the middle of the night?

‘You’re not a vampire.’ My voice sounded feeble but Vlad did not seem to notice.

‘I… I want to be,’ he stammered. The whine in his tone reminded me of a schoolboy, crying because none of the other boys would play with him. But he wasn’t a child, he was a grown man and he disgusted me.

‘That’s why you killed Lucy Darrow.’

His nod was almost imperceptible. ‘I drank her blood, but it didn’t turn me.’ The regret in his voice was not for the taking of my aunt’s life but that it had been in vain.

White-hot anger flashed through me. Before I knew it, I had the stiletto point pressed against his chest. My white-knuckled hand trembled with barely controlled rage.

Colour leached from Vlad’s face making him look like the undead idol he longed to be.

‘I should kill you,’ I rasped through gritted teeth.

*

After my next therapy session, I hung around. One of the new patients, a young woman called Pippa, wanted me to join her for a coffee but I needed to speak with Marcus in private. I told him about my confrontation with Vlad and that it had not led to the peace I had been expecting.

‘Ah,’ Marcus said in that Eureka tone. ‘I read about an arrest in connection with your aunt’s murder. That was your doing, I take it?’

I nodded. ‘I’m not a killer. But I couldn’t let him go unpunished, either. An anonymous call to the police put him on their radar.’

‘And now you’re wondering why you still feel empty.’ It wasn’t a question.

‘I got justice for Lucy, but I don’t feel like I won.’

He took a deep breath and looked into my eyes for long seconds. Eventually, he spoke.

‘Life is not about winning or losing. It’s not about the destination and, for some of us, it’s not even about the journey. It’s about making that journey easier for our fellow travellers.’

He reached out and took my hands in his. My heart lifted as it always did when he held me. There was no sexual attraction; he was two decades older than me and had a loving husband. But there was some magic in his touch.

‘How do you do that?’ I asked.

‘You believed in vampires once.’ His voice was steady, free of ridicule. ‘The blood vampires of horror films. But there are other kinds of vampires, some of which feed on negative emotion. You feel better around me because I drain you of your negativity. And that, in turn, keeps me strong.’ He paused a heartbeat, then added, ‘You could help unburden others, too.’

In that moment, I had a rush of love stronger than anything I had ever known. It was akin to a religious epiphany. If my life was to be permanently scarred by the loss of my aunt, then it could not be worsened by taking the anguish and fear from other people. I intimately knew the depths of grief and despair, and whole-heartedly wished that I could ease that pain in others.

There wasn’t even a decision to make. I had to help other people through the darkest of their days.

And that is why I became a vampire.

* * *

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