Claudia's Chronicle

Claudia’s Chronicle

I started out thinking vampires were all stories, things in books and sick imaginations. Now I’m singing a different tune, and it’s time to share. Let me start off with the basics.
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a living contradiction, loosely speaking of course. My mother hails with trailer-trash pride from some of the worst of sunny downtown Camden, while her parents are living large out in some of the richer parts of the state. I think Mom finally had enough of the Nazi-esque German way they had of doing things, at least that’s what she called it, and her stupid teenage rebellion never quite saw an end. I’m a product of both, I guess someone might say, a picture of 1940’s Aryan bullshit as far as looks go on the outside, blond hair that’s almost white, blue eyes some people would kill to have…
The inside’s a different shtick altogether, though, I can honestly admit that I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life. The drugs, the running away with a stupid asshole that beat the hell out of me from the time I was eighteen until seven years later when I finally took matters into my own hands.
Too bad that I was already dead by that point, but I’m getting to that. Sit back and enjoy the ride, ladies and gentleman, it’s gonna be a long trip to Neverland.

***

After eighteen years of living with good old Mom, I’d had enough. It was perfectly acceptable for her to get stoned or shit-faced every night, but God forefend I walk in the same way. We lived in a small apartment complex then, the run-down sort of place where all the exemplary members of society are often found. You probably know the sort, the winos, the druggies, the unwed teenage mothers. My mother fit into all three categories with the foolish oblivion that was a society drop-out’s trademark. If you looked hard enough, it seemed stamped invisibly and indelibly on her forehead: I’ve given up on life and all the people in it. I didn’t see the mark, not really anyway, until she let Child Protection take Matt away, my little half-brother. He’s been gone for ten years now, hardly more than an infant when they came. Some nights, when you can hear the crickets’ serenade best and alcohol in the sultry summer oppression would taste like the nectar of the gods, I wonder what he’s doing, what was made of his life. Probably something more than I made of mine.
I can’t recall what it’s like now, having what people would consider a normal existence; I mean, I probably never had one to begin with, given my background and all, but things took a downright turn for the freakish eventually. But again, I’m getting there.
Anyway, back to when I was finally legal, able to leave the sinkhole I inhabited. I did it at night, after I’d secretly packed my bags and had all my money scraped together. Mommy dearest was out then, probably getting hammered down in the club with her God-awful spandex on and make-up fairly caked on her sallow features, bottle-blond hair in a severe ponytail and cobalt eyes red-rimmed. She often wore long sleeves to hide the track-marks, and taking a cue from her, pot-head me did the same.
I met the Asshole King, um, I mean Steve, at the door to my apartment, and off we went into the sordid underworld of the streets. He was a real prizewinning scumbag, but with me being an idiot know-it-all at the time, of course I thought he was great. He was five years older than me, brown-locked and sloe-eyed, certainly some of Italy in him. He had a swagger and an attitude that could force Buddha to cry; it was something that unworldly little me admired. I revered him like he was a god. He was going to show me a better life, and the fact that he was my coke-dealer didn’t hurt my inflated image of him.
We went over the bridge to Philly then, and set up housekeeping in another dingy little dump not too much different than the landfill I’d left. Nonetheless, though, I was happy, since I had the life I thought I wanted, no mother, no curfew, all the sex and booze and narcotics my abused body could take.
Yep, I was an example of living high off the hog. Hold on to your seat, though, it gets better.

***

Fast-forward in our little piece of Eden about two years later. There comes a point in everybody’s time on earth when destiny comes knocking, making you get up off your ass and do something with the time God’s given you. At the time, I didn’t quite see it that way. I looked at it as being tired of having nothing to do all day, with only an empty wasteland of drunken sickness to look forward to in the evenings. Most of the day I was alone, since Steve was out in the streets dealing, and of course he wanted dinner on the table when he got home sometime around nine. Home living for us had by that time pretty much fallen apart, he coming home screaming that his day ‘sucked french-fried balls’ whatever the hell that meant. We were never Martha Stewart Living to begin with, but things had deteriorated notably.
I wanted out, and formed a plan to make it so. Whenever I knew Steve to be passed out drunk or so high he couldn’t see straight, I’d go to his drawer and pick out small amounts of money, hide it where I was sure he couldn’t find it(a few bills stuffed in a shoe can go a long way), and once I was sure I had enough, started to look into plans to start school again.
I got my GED first, and by some miracle he didn’t notice. I then enrolled in a local university, and worked my ass off to earn credits and get an internship with the local press. It turned out to be something small and yellow-press, but it beat the shit out of having nothing. The beating didn’t really start until he found out that I could make it without him; before that a slap to the face a few times a day would suffice if he found me to be ‘out of line.’
Right after I’d called the paper to confirm I’d gotten the internship, I’d gone out for awhile to get some stuff to stock the fridge. I didn’t keep track of the time, though, and paid sorely for it when I looked to my wrist-watch and found the time to be half past nine. Damn, he was going to be pissed.
I ran most of the way back to my apartment, brown-paper bags slapping against my chest as I went up the flights of stairs and up to our door; the halls reeked of stale urine and long-dried sweat; my nose wrinkled as I slowly pushed open the door on its squealing hinges.
It was dim inside, and I knew he’d been smoking or drinking again. When he was smashed or stoned he didn’t like bright light, and to turn it on was asking for certain revenge from him. I walked inside on what I prayed was a cat’s feet, carefully placing the bags on a nearby table before I made my way into the tiny living space.
“Claudia.” It was a slurred utterance in the otherwise complete silence that made the hair on the back of my neck prickle. I’d never heard it before, feral, cunning and almost clever. Steve Leone was not known for being a bright bulb.
“What, Steve?” I picked my way through the dark and found the couch, nearly stubbing my toe on the edge as I came.
“Hey, babe, got a call tonight from somebody while you were out. Somebody named Mike Halee.” I felt my heart rise in a glad little leap; I was sure I’d gotten the internship!
His hand grasped my arm, hard, and I could almost feel the fragile blood-vessels under the skin break. As I gasped with agony, he pulled me closer, and I could smell the sewage-like stink of rum on his breath.
“Didn’t think I’d find out, did you, bitch? That you’d cheat on me?” The fingers undid their initial grasp to find a hold in my hair, bunching through it, and pain radiated like heat throughout my scalp. I choked out his name, trying to tell him that things weren’t what they seemed, and that was when I heard him fumble for something in the dark.
“I-I didn’t cheat, Steve, it was the guy from the paper--.” I started, but that was when the blinding pain entered my ribcage, and I caught his grunt as he leaned forward to jab his pocket-knife in deeper.
“Fuckin’ thought you could screw someone behind my back, did you? Well, babe, this is what happens to the women that try to screw me over.” I collapsed then, to the floor, my eyes running with scalding tears of torture even as I felt the warm blood cascade over the fingers I’d pressed to my wound. I heard him get up above me, tower over me, a darker shape in the poor light. He was talking, his mouth was moving, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying. What the hell was going on, was I dying? I had no idea. I could smell the metal of my own blood and the sweet odor of Mary Jane that had been burnt long before, and I shut my eyes, certain I would die.

***
Steve sobered up right-quick when he saw all the red on the floor, and called the cops, saying that it had been some kind of bizarre accident. They took him in for questioning, but later released him on some sort of technicality. To make a long story short, I was in the hospital for a few weeks, since I’d lost a lot of blood and was poorly nourished and the like. That was when they put me through rehab too, or at least the starting path to it; I never went all the way through.
While I lay in that sterile, lifeless world of white and monitors making notes of how many times I breathed a minute, I saw the transfusion bags they had hooked into my IV, and that was when the thought came to me. I was living off the blood of another human being, like some sort of vampire, and it was then that for the first time in many years I recalled some of the fanciful tales my grandmother regaled me with when I came to stay at their place sometimes. I’d heard of vampire geek role-play games, read some books, seen some movies. I thought, hey, I can do better! So that’s what I set out to do.
After my release I got my hands on a cheap laptop from E-Bay, and while the thing was a piece of junk by today’s technological standards, it was a start. For awhile, Steve seemed to deliberately avoid me, like I carried the plague. Maybe he was scared he’d kill me next time he got pissed, and when he was sober, which was an increasingly rare event, he was dangerously close to being nice, which was something that I tended to mistrust. Instead I opted to lock myself in my bedroom with the laptop and let fantasies of Victorian England and vampires flit through my mind like birds before landing on my screen, and from there, the manuscript for my first novel was born.
It was a short hop to the library to use their internet, and from there I found an online source for an agent. I wrote to him, sending a copy of my novel along, and he loved it, as did the company I sent it to a few months later for publication. By this time I was dividing my time between being a writer and a journalist, so many nights and days I was behind in one kind of work or another, frantic to get done. Either way, I was happy that the world knew about me, that I had a voice, even if only in a small way.
Sometimes I wonder if that’s where I went wrong.
***

The next few years went by quickly, and from my space in the back office of the paper’s office, I was promoted to a TV reporter. I wrote a second novel to add to the first, and while it was no best-seller, it made me something to add to my income. The Jackass and I saw less of each other, since I made it a point to avoid him when I could, and drugs became a very miniscule part of my life. I figured I was finally breaking free.
Now it’s time to add to my story the part that a lot of people probably wouldn’t believe, something I’d be locked in a nuthouse for trying to tell. I’m not crazy, though, I’m dead, remember? Thought I’d made that clear. All right, all right, I can hear the critics whining, ‘how can you be dead and typing? That’s impossible!’ Ah, ah, if Jesus can raise Lazarus from the dead, then who’s to say a dead woman can’t type? Bear with me, here, it’ll all start to make sense soon. Those of you that’re quick already know what happened to me, but don’t all scream the answer out at once. I type for the slow and stupid, let me tell my story as I please.
I went to a local coffee shop one evening, intent on getting out of the frosty winter cold and maybe grab a cup of something warm. The wind was biting and seeping through my bones, and I shivered as I pushed the door open and came to stand in the shop, rubbing my hands together and cursing the season. Christmas wasn’t that far off, and “Jingle Bells” blared on a stereo on the front counter. I always hated corny Christmas traditions.
I ordered my cup and as the clerk turned away to fill the order, I inhaled and caught the scent of perfume, my nose guessing it was something possibly Calvin Klein. I didn’t wear the stuff myself, and didn’t like people that thought that being a nucleus in a cloud of it was in any way attractive.
I turned in the direction of the offense and locked eyes with a woman that was slightly taller than me, no big feat if you’re all of five-foot-three. Her hair was dark and shone with a luster, black as the core of midnight. Eyes the color of strong café-latte bored into mine, and red lips were parted in a slight smile, showing gleaming white teeth. She was clothed in a black coat, unbuttoned to show that she wore a red sweater and black slacks underneath, a golden necklace at her throat. Her skin was slightly bronzed, like she’d been out in the sun, and I was about to turn away when she began to speak softly to me.
“I think I recognize you. You’re the author of that book series, aren’t you, British Blood, the Victorian vampire series? I read your books, and I must say you have a lot of talent for somebody so young.”
I felt the blood rush to my face; I wasn’t used to hearing praise for my work. I much less figured I’d meet an actual fan in the flesh. I turned, painting a smile on my face as I grabbed the coffee in its Styrofoam cup and took a careful sip. Damn, still too hot. I removed the plastic lid and began to blow on the dark liquid within.
“Yeah, that’s me, Claudia Goethe. I’m flattered, finally meeting a fan,” I started, and her smile grew larger. It made her eyes spark with warmth, and there was a new note in her smooth, rich tone.
“I’m Gwen. I started following your series a couple years ago. I never thought I’d run into you here.” I nodded, and wondered at her earlier comment; what did she mean by ‘for somebody so young’? She looked to be about my age. She seemed able to read what I was thinking, though, because before I knew it she’d taken my elbow and was steering me toward one of the little café tables.
“We should sit down and talk. I wanted to ask you some questions about your characters. I’m interested in the supernatural myself.”
“Are you really?” I took the seat opposite hers and offered a faint smile, unsure how to react. I’d never been in a situation like this before.
It got easier, though, for the most part my new acquaintance made talking easy. I didn’t know how fast time was flying, though, and nearly hyperventilated after I looked out to see the world black as pitch, the lights in passing cars oversized fireflies. I glanced at my watch and found it was almost eleven-thirty—I’d stayed for almost three hours!
“I have to go,” I stuttered, on the verge of a panic attack as I almost knocked the chair over. Gwen’s pretty visage shadowed with disappointment, and she questioned, “So soon?”
“Yeah, well, you know how these things are, need to get to work on the third novel,” I made a light joke as I went for the door, and she was up and at my side in an instant.
“Well, at least say you’ll come talk to me at home for a few minutes. I feel stupid, leaving a copy of your book at home. I wanted you to sign it,” she explained, and I all but tore myself from her gentle grip.
“I really can’t, someone’s waiting for me at home and I need to get back--.” The expression in Gwen’s eyes cut me off. Hurt, mixed with simmering anger.
“I’m sure they can wait,” she began pleasantly in a way I knew brooked no argument. Had I run into some sort of nutcase?
“All right, but only for a few minutes, I’m serious when I say I need to get home.”
“A few minutes is all we need, Claudia.”
***

I was taken to a pleasant townhouse a few blocks away—she lived about fifteen minutes from me. She unlocked the door and beckoned me inside, and as I walked in, I was taken aback. The place was neatly laid out, with antiques that looked to be extremely old. Rugs that looked hand-braided decorated the floor, and blankets with colorful and intricate patters were draped casually over the back of her sofa. Dream catchers hung in some of the windows, and the whole room smelled of fresh earth.
“Wow, you have a beautiful home. Are these all--?” I gestured to the dream catchers and vases, and Gwen nodded.
“Those have all been in my family for generations. Passed down to me by grandparents and the like.” She motioned for me to sit on her couch, and she went and disappeared into what I guessed to be her kitchen.
She returned a few minutes later and pressed a mug of coffee into my hands, I supposed in an effort to stop my fidgeting. As I took a sip I realized it was Hawaiian Blend, my favorite kind of coffee, and I looked curiously at her over the rim of my cup. She looked back, her expression placid. “Anything wrong?” she asked, and I felt my face burn again.
“I was just wondering how you knew my favorite kind of coffee. I don’t have time to stay and drink it, though.” Her smile was calm, her answer soft.
“About that, Claudia. I didn’t bring you here just to bullshit back and forth. I have something I’d like to offer you. When I said I was interested in the supernatural, I wasn’t lying, I truly am. But I found your books, how should I say this….Charming. So many things right, but so many wrong. I admit, I was intrigued.”
“What do you mean, wrong?” I frowned, and as her smile grew, I noticed there was something different about it, something odd. I leaned in a little closer and saw that she’d…filed down her caninesat iat in the name of Jesus, Allah, and Buddha? Fuck!
“Look, Gwen. It was really nice of you to invite me over and all,” I set my cup down and prepared to stand, “but I have to go. The vampire act is creeping me out just a tad. You need to lay off the B-movies and vampire games.” Before I could move, though, she was above me, her hand pressing me back to the sofa cushions.
“Hear me out,” she said, and there was a note of command to it that I suddenly felt I couldn’t ignore. Knowing I wouldn’t leave now, she went back to her seat on another chair just across from mine, a table between us.
“This isn’t an act. I know that vampires have been seen as stories and Halloween things for years. I regret that. We’re really a lot more than that, but in the end we had to let the stereotypes avail. It was the only way to stay safe,” she narrated, and I could hardly believe what I was hearing. This had to be some sick joke.
“This is…hard to swallow,” I admitted, and she laughed, a dulcet sound.
“I wouldn’t share this with kine. See, you’re different. I’ve chosen you.”
“Kine? Chosen me?” My head was whirling between bewilderment and anger; Steve was going to beat the hell out of me now.
“Pardon me. Kine are what we call humans we feed on. And yes, I’ve chosen you. You see, vampires are more complex than even that human author, what was her name, Anne Rice, wrote. We all have clans, and each clan is different in some way. I, for example, am part of the Brujah Clan. But that doesn’t change the fact that we’re all children of Caine.”
“Cain, like the Biblical guy?” That was the only question I could gather enough sense to ask, and she clarified, “Caine with an ‘e.’ The first vampire. God cursed him for killing his brother by making him the first of our kind. He made more, and so generations formed. I’m one of the older generations, and my blood is strong. I’ve been watching you for a long time, I wanted you to be my childe.”
“This is insane. You’re insane. I’m leaving.” I gathered enough wits to get up and move, and it was then that her pleasantry vanished. Her face transformed into hate, and a low, almost inhuman growl bubbled in her throat as she intercepted me.
“You’d fucking refuse me?!” She sounded incredibly like Steve, and I shrank away. She saw me flinch and knew she was probably coming on too strong; there was no doubt in my mind that she was not making up stories. Not by the look in her eyes.
“I can’t just let you go now. I told you too much. The prince would kill us both if I just let you walk out.”
“The prince?”
“My boss. You’ll learn more later.” She got up from her seat and came to stand over me, the scent pf her perfume overwhelming.
“But first, just relax. If I’m going to make you my childe, I need to have your blood. If I kill you in the process of your Embrace, what we call the transformation, and you don’t wake up again, that means it was nice knowing you. That, and I’ll need to go to my second choice. Don’t want to do that.”
“This is all some sort of joke anyway, so sure, if you want to have your little game of vampire pretend and bite me, sure, go ahead.” I can always call the cops and have your ass arrested, I mentally added.
She moved slowly, and I felt her fingers tease back the edge of my shirt collar as she unzipped my parka. I was no lesbian and wondered if she was going to make this something sexual, and my heart froze. If so, I was out of there, post-haste.
Then her lips, brushing against my neck, and I stiffened. “This isn’t a game,” she murmured.
“What the fu—ah!” The teeth found their mark and sank in; a crimson haze settled across my vision. The initial pain was melting into a pleasant calm, and my body felt immersed in pleasure. If only Steve knew how to do that…
My head dropped forward against her as she drank, and I was lost. I felt sort of as I had the night Steve stabbed me, only without the pain. Life was flagging fast, and my open eyes lost all track of reality as I slid out of consciousness.

***

I woke up, feeling my head churn. This is a part of the story that has come to me in nightmares, I can’t honestly say I recall it as it actually happened. It came to me in pieces, and the first thing I remember is getting up from Gwen’s couch, feeling a dull sort of hunger. I could smell something metallic, delicious, could sense something pulsing. I sniffed the air. Oh, t fot food. But it wasn’t the same couch. Cold, cement, metal. A garage?
I was an animal, ravenous, and I hungered. Gwen was standing not far off, and in her company, a single person. The symphony of her heart beat a beautiful chorus as I wakened, and I was up in an instant, tearing past Gwen and to that person.
She screamed as my transformed body tore into her, the blood was a repast in my mouth. I bit and clawed with my fingernails, and I was aware that Gwen stood quietly by as I fed. I had no idea what had happened to me, had no clue of what I had become. Images of a woman haunted, insane, one foot already in the grave…Let me take you there and make it your world, sweetie. Your life’s over.
At some point I became sated, but still wanted more. I was feeling mildly more like my old self again, but more red nourishment needed to be mine, and as I turned to my victim, Gwen’s hand sung across my face, making me snarl with an animal’s repressed rage.
“Enough, dawn is coming! Go back to sleep,” she urged, rushing the body that had died out of the room and me to the couch. I climbed atop it and shut my eyes, reacting wholly on instinct.
I didn’t know it at the time, but my life was over. I was Embraced.
I was a vampire.
***

Ah, blood, my sole enjoyment in Unlife. I could still taste it in my mouth the following night as I woke up, and licked lips caked with the dried stuff as I sat up, this time in Gwen’s living room. Had I been carried there? I sat up, rubbing at my eyes. Goddamn it, I was parched again, and I wanted more.
“Where’s the bitch that turned me?” I muttered mostly to myself as I stood up from the couch and started to stumble about. My arms felt heavy, cold, two slabs of marble, and I licked my lips again, feeling irritated. I had power finally, but Gwen had more. I needed more. I was dead, and I knew it was possible to die again. I knew it by the way I could still feel, emotion, hunger, desire. Fuck it all, where was she?
Then I saw it. The shining vessel of glory, stained pink and wonderful. One of the vases she had shown me. I picked it up, put it back down. Yes, a weight in my hands, like a human skull. I took it again, and felt for some reason a reckless sort of anger.
I threw it, and it met the wall and shattered like the pieces of a dying dream. It littered the floor, and the soundlessness that followed it was eerie. Steve, Mom, I’m dead, didn’t you know? Peter’s been crucified and nobody knows. I never had a chance to tell you to rot in Hell.
Suddenly, I felt something. Somebody. And man, were they pissed. Whoops. I turned just in time to meet the blood red eyes of my vampire sire, and she was looking like Medusa’s cohort.
“Hi, Gwen,” I greeted weakly, and she snarled out something I took for, “That vase was a millennia old and worth considerably more than you!”
“Sorry, sorry, you mean this thing?” I motioned to the floor and tried to reach the pieces. Another growl, and the literal red from her eyes vanished. She was glowering at me like she was human, and I gave her a shit-eating grin as I went. So much like Steve when she was angry, and the urge to curl into a ball and shut out the world was strong. I almost went fetal on her floor, and she snapped something as she stepped in front of me to block my view of the destroyed craft.
“Do you have any idea how much that’s going to cost?” I
hung my head and shook it; it was best, I learned from experience, not to provoke a homicidal maniac.
“Fine. Get ready, you’re meeting Prince Luna tonight. Go home and get dressed. And don’t fuck it up or we’ll both be killed.”
What a great way to start out an evening.
“Y’know, I can always superglue it back together…”
***


The mere mention of superglue now drives Gwen to frenzy, it’s what we vampires do when agitated or angry. Not a pretty sight.
We can do that you know, get pissed and let the beast in us out. I’ve only experienced that once, myself. Later, I met Luna, the vampire prince of Philly. Long story short, he’s the head honcho, the dude in charge. I can’t really tell people about us, what I am. I have friends now too, something I didn’t have much of in life. More like Luna assigned them to me. There’s Kat, the nut case former assassin that always tries to beat the shit out of me, Arcadia, the actress who no longer casts a reflection(a side-effect of her Embrace), Nick, who has bailed me out of problems before(I haven’t been too good with hunting and have made a FEW honest mistakes), and Ira, the mama’s boy who works at the university and drives a geek-mobile, honest to God. I’m geg alg along with them all right for the most part. The whole concept of eternity isn’t quite sinking in yet. I mean, I have all of time and nothing to do with it.
Steve’s dead, on a brighter note, I came home one night and the bastard tried to rape me, so I broke his neck. I drank his blood and got high. Ah, the waytaketake drugs has changed but not their wondrous beauty.
Now I’ve entered Neverland, and the Peter Pan in me’s coming out. Never had time to play while I lived, why not now?
After all, I have all the time in the world, haven’t I? Unlife is beautiful.
Here’s a warning, folks. Take this as fiction, go ahead. I don’t expect you to believe me. After all, word on the street is that our stories have become a game to you people. I believed that once. Comforting little fantasy, isn’t it? Maybe I’m some nut making crazy things up. Then again, there’s the possibility I’m not, but why worry? Maybe some dark night on the city streets, we can meet, talk, get a bite to eat, that sort of thing. I have all the time in the world, remember, as I said before. Or maybe you’d like to decline?
After all, it’s all only a game, or a story for the sick minded. Or is it?