‘You’re a…’
It was in an enclosed green, in close vicinity of the student infested Faversham bar that Kevin McCraith’s insurmountable desire to end his own life had been shocked into a brief subsidence.
‘Yes, yes,’ it impatiently answered in an unexpectedly proper, southern accent; the Queen’s English if ever Kevin had heard it. ‘Ossenfelder, Goethe, Polidori, Le Fanu, Féval, Glišić…’ the voice expertly pronounced each name in its native tongue, continuing to reel off an extensive list of authors and poets of whom Kevin knew very few.
‘… Did you really think they were all making it up?’ it asked him, mockingly. ‘Every exquisite detail of our magnificence, all recorded diligently by some human or other throughout the centuries.’ The way the creature said ‘human’ was interesting, as if the mere thought of man made it nauseous. ‘All of them encountered my kind at some stage in their lives, even your ludicrous Meyer and Harris.’
Kevin didn’t need this. The longer the creature spoke, the more Kevin felt the urge to die return. Tonight had been the decider; it wasn’t merely the countless rejections he’d received from every female in the bar that had lowered his spirits again, that was standard procedure. Nor had it been the intolerant stares that questioned his every move from the eyes of arrogant students who wore ridiculous glasses they didn’t need, though this didn’t help matters. What had really gotten to Kevin tonight were the harsh truths that Dave Treadwell, the closest person he had ever had to a friend, had screamed at him in a drunken stupor. The truth that in the thirty years of his miserable life, he had contributed nothing to the world around him. The truth that he was a parasite, stealing his life wherever he could from society, all the while blaming everything and everyone but himself for the way his life had turned out. And the simplest, most painful truth of all: that he had never done a good deed in his life, and the world would truly be a better place without him.
No, with all of this weighing down on his mind, Kevin certainly did not need to be patronised by this freak in front of him.
‘Fuck off mate, I don’t need this’ Kevin spat aggressively.
Before he had taken another breath the creature had him pinned by the throat against the wet grass and had drawn its face so close that Kevin could see the fine points on each of its long teeth. There was a wild look in its gleaming, red eyes.
‘Pray, tell…’ its rancid breath was unexpectedly cool on Kevin’s face. ‘…what do you need?
‘Don’t think I didn’t see you in there, causing all that commotion with your companion.’ The wild look faded as quickly as it had appeared in the creatures eyes and the tone it took became conversational. ‘Though you are clearly too weak to take on a man of such stature’
‘Look if you’re gonna fucking kill me just get on with it...’
‘Ah, yes! Determined to die aren’t you. Your sort are always the same, giving up on life before they’ve been born. I’ve not come to murder you Kevin McCraith, at least, not in the traditional sense. I’ve come to offer you something of a much greater value.
‘You wanted to kill that so-called friend of yours; I can give you the power to tear him limb from limb. You want women to see a beauty within you that is unreflected by your appearance and nervous actions around them; I can give you a power that will have women bowing down to your will. You want people to finally give you the respect you’ve deserved from birth; I can give you a power that will make them cower at the mention of your name.’
Kevin’s eyes were now shining greedily at the mention of each of his most coveted desires, though he still harboured suspicions of the creature’s true motives. He thought about the offer for a minute as the creature released its grip on his neck.
He heard the music still emanating loudly from the nearby bar. It was a britpop tune Kevin had enjoyed in his teenage years and the chorus rang out while he considered the offer:
You’ll never get to heaven with a smile on your face from me--
‘Why would you do this, what’s the catch?’ Kevin asked, genuinely interested.
‘Its not a catch, not for you.’ the creature informed him. ‘It’s something you’ve wanted for a while. You just have to die.’
Kevin nodded his head as he at last realised what the creature was implying. ‘So I end up like you.’ he finished. ‘And I won’t feel shit anymore, I’ll enjoy being… not dead?’ he asked this almost tentatively, as the creature helped him to his feet.
‘Knowledge beyond bounds, senses beyond belief, there is no possible reason why you wouldn’t.
‘This turf we stand upon, for instance, I’m sure it looks sullied and brown to your mortal eyes, yet viewed from mine it is a pasture of the highest verdure. It has been argued throughout history that the Lord, in all his wisdom, deemed a chosen few worthy of a heavenly existence on this earth. To walk the earth as immortals, to experience the true scope of the world’s beauty without fear of danger or death. I believe my own existence as proof of this concept.’
Kevin’s eyes were shining again with anticipation of such a life for himself. ‘Why not?’ he thought to himself 'I want to die anyway, what is there to lose?’
‘You’ve nothing to lose, everything to gain’ the creature assured him, as if responding to his thoughts directly.
‘Fuck it.’ Kevin submitted, ‘Sign me up.’ He felt a sudden impulse to make sure nobody else was present to witness such an unholy pact. As he turned to look he heard the creature’s voice whisper directly into his ear.
‘You’ve made a wise choice, Kevin, a very wise choice’ and as he turned back toward the creature he found himself completely alone, accompanied only by the continuing music of the last bar he’d ever visit alive:
There’s something quite bizarre I cannot see--
Kevin awoke in the skateboarding enclosure of Hyde Park, not for the first time in his life. He always found that the half-pipe provided a natural support for his back, and when intoxicated this more than sufficed as a makeshift bed. He felt colder than usual, but put this down to the weather, it was winter after all. He was acutely aware of a stabbing pain in his stomach.
‘I believed you would feel more comfortable awaking in a familiar setting. Have you strength?’
Kevin recoiled as he realised his maker was standing over him, blood dribbling down his pale chin. In his left hand he held a large plastic bottle, filled with the red liquid.
‘You must be hungry still, I tried to feed you while you were asleep but you were quite unresponsive.’ His voice was no longer warm and seductive as it had been at the bar. He now sounded agitated, as a teacher toward an uncooperative student.
Handing the bottle over to Kevin he continued. ‘This will complete your transformation and keep you alive for a day or two. You can hunt for yourself once it’s gone.’
Kevin already felt cheated. The only difference he could perceive between his former life as an unhappy man and his new non-life as an undead was a severe pain in his stomach, that was slowly worming its way through his entire being. He began to drink from the bottle slowly, apathetic toward the poor soul from whom it was acquired.
With each sip however, his pain receded. After he finished a greedy first two mouthfuls Kevin was completely re-energised from his previous languid state. After a further two mouthfuls an unfamiliar strength began to flow through him. He felt as if he could move mountains with his bare hands.
As he drained the bottle of its remaining precious elixir an impossible wave of pure intelligence flowed through him. The world seemed to brighten around him and if Kevin hadn’t known the meaning of ‘verdure’, he fully understood what his maker had meant now. Surely this was the life of the chosen few he had so boldly spoken of. As he withdrew the bottle from his mouth and began to thank his maker for such a glorious gift, he realised he had once again been left alone.
Yet this time it did not matter. Kevin began his new non-life in earnest. Using his new found knowledge and strength to outwit and overpower many of his former enemies. He found that he could determine the deepest desires and hidden vices of those he spoke to within a mere minute of conversation and soon became adept at charming women into his clutches. He intentionally started trouble with men he knew to be local thugs, beating them half to death when they dared to turn their weapons towards him. The one thing he did not do in these first few days as a vampire was feed upon a human. Yet he knew he would never need to, not the way he felt now. He would survive on the singular bottle given to him by his maker, and not-live happily ever after.
But the bottle had been emptied and the pain began again.
In a sense, it never really ceased. During the honeymoon period with his enhanced senses, Kevin dismissed the vague pain that grew again in his stomach as an temporary side effect from his transformation that would soon clear. Of course, it only got worse.
After a few days it was no longer just his stomach that hurt. At times his whole body throbbed with pain, as if his veins might pop out of his skin in their quest for new blood. There were times when it was bearable, when he could go about his leisures and keep a clear head. There were times that it was pure agony. The pain would make him scream out in rage at the nearest living creature, or involuntarily bare his monstrous teeth to the lady he was attempting to charm that day.
On the eighth evening of his non-life, Kevin stood wearily on the enclosed green by the Faversham bar once again mulling over the question of continued existence or the great finality death.
Dave Treadwell finished his sixteenth scotch of the night before deciding that this was simply going to be another mark to tally on the long list of unsuccessful days that made up his life. He had thought (and drank) a lot this week, about all of the nasty things he had said to his only friend in life, about how similar their lives had been and about how his argument with Kevin was little more than an outlet for the pent up rage he felt toward himself.
On his way out of the bar Dave glimpsed an odd piece of graffiti on the side of the building:
Thy flowers are withered on the stem
and felt an intense correlation between this singular statement and his own life. Thinking that perhaps those creative students might be doing some good in the world after all, he continued toward Woodhouse Lane, where he had but one intention: to jump from the bridge over the A58 and end his pitiful term on earth.
As he was leaving, he heard and felt a cold voice whisper something directly into his ear that immediately ensnared his attention and he was promptly re-acquainted with an old friend.
