Elizabeth and the Vampire's Cabin (10 page)

"But
disease began to sweep the landscape. We began to hear talk of bloodthirsty
Neanderthals suddenly lashing out at other Neanderthals or modern humans on
hunting expeditions. They had become vampires, but we didn't know what that
was. It wasn't unusual for new, mysterious diseases to pop up and even wipe out
a whole tribe. But this was different. This disease wasn't weakening them. It
made them stronger, more bloodthirsty, and it seemed they couldn't be killed.
People were worried and a frightened people can often become a violent people.
The Neanderthals began to turn on each other in terror. The uninfected ones
tried to ostracize or wipe out the ones that had changed into vampires. But the
ones that were no longer Neanderthals, but vampires, wiped them out instead. No
one knew how the disease was transmitted at first, but before long we found it
was through blood and sex. It was like AIDS. The Neanderthals first got it in a
very complicated way, too convoluted to go into right now, but they spread it
to each other easily. Cro-Magnons, however, were less affected. They either
never changed after exposure or they didn't change as much as the Neanderthals.
They became half vampires. And there was limited intermingling between the two
species, so that cut down on the number of infected Cro-Magnons. We didn't
think of each other as different species back then, but modern science has shown
that we were very genetically different. This difference meant that the vampire
disease had a different presentation in humans. But then...maybe we should have
known we weren't quite the same. We knew even back then that procreation was
reduced when Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons mated. Children either didn't come or
they were sterile or sickly. Sometimes both. Interbreeding in large numbers was
discouraged and was only done to establish relations with another tribe. I
don't know how my father was able to produce me. I promise I was as healthy as
a horse. My only issue is that I was most likely sterile. I mated with many
Cro-Magnons, and no child even remotely resembling me was ever produced.

"After
the Neanderthals had exterminated almost all of their own kind, the Cro-Magnons
from Home began to be frightened of the Neanderthal vampires. The vampires had
started to eat modern humans while they were hunting on the mainland. This
would have been considered cannibalism amongst both Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals.
This was completely unacceptable. Cannibalism was banned and punishable by
execution in both tribes. My mother and father told me that different tribes
would feed on each other until not very long before my birth and it was
disastrous for everyone. With this new development, the Cro-Magnons decided it
was time to take action instead of avoiding the Neanderthals. Cro-Magnon
tribes, which had tamed dogs for generations by that point, gave them signals
to attack Neanderthals.

"I
became a vampire in the most uninspiring way imaginable. And it happened
quickly, because I responded to the disease as a Neanderthal would. I had tiny,
fresh cuts on my fingertips from sharpening arrowheads. While tracking
Neanderthals with my dog, Kay, she attacked one. It was a vampire, so she
obviously did not kill it. But she did wound it. My dog was covered in the
Neanderthal's blood after she had ripped several gashes into her skin with her
teeth. The Neanderthal was literally spraying blood onto my dog when it grabbed
her, sank its teeth into her belly and then threw her at me. I saw my dog
whimpering and the life going out of her eyes. I cried and clung to her, soaked
in her blood and the vampires. And that's when I changed. The vampire's blood
went through those tiny cuts in my fingers. That Neanderthal was charging at
me, when I suddenly felt myself become stronger and more volatile. I ran at the
Neanderthal who had morphed into a saber tooth lion. I then changed into a bat
and flew on top of him. When I landed on his back, I spontaneously turned back
into human form and tried to wrestle the large lion onto the ground. I was in
hysterics because I loved that dog. I wanted to hurt that vampire, and I didn't
care if I died in the process. The vampire, still a giant lion, fell to the
ground, twisted its head, and bit hard into my shoulder. I screamed in pain as
blood gushed out of my shoulder and into the vampire's mouth. I thought the
battle was over for me. But it wasn't. It was over for the Neanderthal vampire.
It immediately started to choke and convulse and promptly died. That was when I
realized that a vampire cannot suck the blood of another vampire without
dying.
 

"I
went back to my tribe and told them what happened. We wondered if there were
other ways to kill besides through the blood of another vampire, but the method
of blood would suffice for now. We planted a trap. We left the vampires an
offering of food on the mainland. Little did they know that we had collected
the blood of their fallen vampire brethren and marinated the food with it. We
killed quite a few Neanderthal vampires with that trap. The ones who had seen
what happened to those who ate the food still needed to be taken care of. But
it wasn't us that had to do anything about it. There hadn't been many Neanderthals
on the Black Island. I would put it at maybe fifty max. And as I said, the
vampires killed the majority of the Neanderthals they hadn't infected through
sexual intercourse or the exchange of blood. We killed about half of the
infected with the poisoned food, so the ten or so left finally killed
themselves. Back then, your identity was your tribe. Without the tribe, you had
no identity. It was like you didn't exist. And their tribe was almost
completely gone. The small number of uninfected Neanderthals who were left
avoided them like the plague. They had escaped the Black Island and either hid
on the mainland or joined our tribe. So, the vampires of Black Island killed
themselves. Completely isolated, they burned themselves in the sun, became
listless, and...I'm pretty sure, began to mate with one another. The fluid
exchange from mating would have been a death sentence. Within days of the
poisoning trick, we could no longer hear their raucous behavior at night. We no
longer saw their torches moving about. In about a week's time, we decided to
carefully investigate. We found their dead, badly burnt bodies. The truth is
that Hell is a place where you can't live and you can't die. That is my
definition of Hell. And that's the position that the vampires found themselves
in. They couldn't really live anymore. And they couldn't die. Unless they
killed themselves. Sometimes I think they killed themselves just so they could
feel alive for just a moment before they perished. The only survivors, I would
later discover, were Joe Newman and a group of half Neanderthals who had
escaped Black Island. He and they left the island to live on the mainland
together.

"The
few surviving Neanderthals from Black Island that had joined our tribe
interbred with us. There were about a dozen half vampire's in my tribe back
then. They were almost all Homo sapien women who had been taken prisoner by the
vampires and were repeatedly used for sexual reasons. There was only one man
from my tribe who had been captured by the vampires and punished by being
forced to drink the blood of a fallen vampire. He became a half vampire,
changed into a large bird, and flew back to our island. It took over a hundred
years for all but two of the half vampires to die. Wounds and illnesses that
would normally kill were only minor afflictions for them. They healed faster
and rarely got sick. But their lives were lonely. They were considered
unnatural and no one would mate with them. We lost our one, lone male half
vampire quickly. He had sex with a female half vampire, and both parties died
from exposure to the other person. However, I discovered a vampire and half
vampire could mate without a problem. It was a risky experiment, but we had to
see. We were looking at very long lives and I know that I didn't want to go it
alone without any mate.

"I
watched as my parents grew old. This was normal and an accepted part of life.
But when my friends grew old, and their children grew old, and they were all
gone, I started to feel the desire to end it. Luckily, all the half vampires
were woman, and I used them as mates to keep me warm at night. But they too
were aging and I knew one day I would lose them. Children never came, and when
my mates were gone, life in my tribe was nearly unbearable. The vampire scare
had been over a century ago, there was no one alive to remember it except me,
but the female members of my tribe were still frightened of mating with me. It
was sad to stay in my tribe with no one to mate with and no one from my early
life to reminisce with. I was the only vampire in the tribe and I became a
loner surrounded by people. Still, I stayed with my tribe until the Neolithic
era. And then I lost myself in the many civilizations that were cropping up due
to the domestication of plants and animals. Life no longer needed to be based
on a hunter gatherer society. Farming was here to stay. And that was where I
found Joe and the remaining vampires: farming on the mainland.
 
I stayed with them for centuries before
exploring the rest of the world.

"I
wandered through millenniums. I took many lovers. So far as I know, none ever
became half vampires. I never married and didn't have sex more than a few times
with the same woman. I had already lost too many half vampire mates to old age
to go through a long-term relationship again.

"In
my travelling it was difficult to get into contact with the other surviving
vampires. We were all half Neanderthal (except for Joe) and could recognize one
another quickly if we saw each other in a chance encounter or in a news
article. You'd be surprised how often Joe has made international headlines! But
once the internet became commonplace it was simple for us to find each other
without having to bump into each other. We only got close once again, the first
time since our Neolithic farming days, when sites like Facebook and MySpace
became commonplace. We tracked each other with ease.

"You
and Arthur are the first half vampires that I have created. I never thought I
would give this gift to anyone else, and I don't know why I chose now to create
you both."

Chapter
12: Good Night

Elizabeth
was reeling from this long narrative. It was the longest she had ever heard him
speak about his personal life. In fact, this was the first time that she had
ever heard him speak about his personal life.

"I
want you to sleep well tonight, Liz. Just rest your body. There will be a lot
of changes occurring, all of which will be normal. I'll come back tomorrow
night. In the meantime, I'll ask Arthur to stay with you tonight. He can sleep
on the chaise lounge."

Aaron
departed and Arthur came in about ten minutes later.

"Aaron
explained to me what's happened. I am so sorry Elizabeth. I had no idea this
could happen!"

"I
just need to rest."

"I
thought the worst of it was right after downing his blood. So if you haven't
felt anything yet then that means it probably won't be so bad."

"Don't
worry about me. Really. I'm tough, remember? And now I'm a half vampire. It's
gonna take a lot to kill me."

"Are
you upset?" he asked her with concern.

"Surprisingly,
no. Maybe, once the reality of it all starts to sink in, I'll be more upset.
But I feel strangely exhilarated. I feel like this is the best thing to happen
to me in a long while."

Elizabeth
went to bed feeling weak and shaky. She was starting to get chills. She put on
pajamas, pulled the covers over her body, turned out her bedside lamp, and
drifted off to an uneasy sleep.

She
went into REM almost immediately. She saw a giant sea monster that looked like
a dragon. Elizabeth woke up startled. She felt gassy and had a strong urge to
go to the bathroom. She ran to the toilet and stayed there for about twenty
minutes.

"Are
you alright?" Arthur called. She could hear him just outside her bathroom
door. He had entered her room in concern.

"Go
back to sleep, Arthur. I'll be okay."

Arthur
was concerned. He had felt ill while transforming into a half vampire, but it
hadn't been like this. The pain was all over in about fifteen minutes. After
that, he had been well enough to climb a tree and sneak into Elizabeth's
bedroom.

A
few minutes later, she went back into her room. Arthur had left a hot cup of
chamomile tea for her. She sipped at it for a few minutes until she felt her
body begin to calm. Then she willed herself to go back to sleep.

Again,
she began to dream. She had a dream of herself as a dog running through the
woods on the island. She stopped short and saw Aaron with another woman in
animal skins who looked peculiarly similar to him. They both shared the deep
brow ridge that accentuated their eyes and athletic, bulky figures. A bit of
the Neanderthal showing up in both. Aaron was pointing up to the sky and said,
"Kyla, look!" There was something hanging from a large tree.

Elizabeth
woke up howling. She had changed into a dog. She pawed at her bed and kicked
out her feet. Arthur rushed in and turned the light on.

"Liz,
are you okay?!"

Elizabeth
tried to say, "Get out!" but it came out as a howl. She then abruptly
turned back into a human and cried, "Get out, Arthur!"

Arthur
silently turned off the light. She heard the door shut a moment later.

Elizabeth
felt feverish. She had packed fever reducers as well as a host of other
medicines. But she always believed fevers were good for the body, so she
decided to do without. After a tortured half hour of tossing and turning, the
churning in her stomach began to subside and she fell back asleep. And that's
when she saw the most startling image of all. She was holding a bloody throwing
knife. A mutilated, dead body lay at her feet. And she was preparing to throw
the knife at Aaron.