Cracks
By Lee Clark ©1992
Oh Jesus...oh Jesus...
I don't know how I got here...where I was yesterday. I have so many vague images flashing in my head, so many scenes that I glimpse for an instant before they retreat into darkness. It all seems so unreal to me now, like the furniture around me in this drab room. They're all just blunt visions: colorless, without texture or even depth. And my body feels numb...like all of me is asleep and I'm just too stupid to know it.
If I could get some kind of order, set things into sequence...if I could just organize the procession of events...the night might just unravel itself for me, and then I could escape...
I can't possibly be alone...I know that. That is the one thing I do recall. They are always here, hiding in little holes, or in the shag carpet, or in the cracks in the plaster. They only show themselves when it will upset me the most...and therefore, they must have some kind of intelligence. To be able to gauge my emotions and catch me at my weakest moments. But what are they, and why do they harass me? It must be something I've done...disturbed a hive of bees is what I've done...I stumbled on their nest or something when I was mowing the lawn, or cleaning the basement.
Now I wake up and find little pinpricks up and down my legs in the middle of the night, and minute, red footprints crisscrossing the sheets. Or I find a clump of my hair neatly plucked and placed on the floor at my bed. Or maybe even a cockroach impaled on a toothpick, deposited on my chest. What kind of retaliation is this? If I have wronged them so, I do not see why they do not just kill me in my sleep. Oh Jesus...
This seems so insane, me fearing for my life and not having the remotest clue as to who my executioners are. If only I can force myself to go back a few days...is that all it has been?...yes, only a few days ago, that was when it began...when the shovel cleared the first parcel of dirt from my grave. And it was night, just like it is now, like it has been since that very instant. That's right, day! I've not seen daylight in so long. God, the sun seems like a distant savior from my viewpoint, here in this gutted out chasm of nocturnal decay. Here, where I swim through fluid are, and battle shadows.
I remember the bookstore. I was way back in the collectors' area, the damp and musty corner where almost no one ventures. The lighting there is abysmal...and the rest of the store, where all the new books and paperbacks are sold, is an eternity away. Not even the sound of the electronic door buzzer permeates the thick, gloomy atmosphere of the back room. It seems somehow archaic there, I'd even say there was a hint of sinister doom lurking on the shelves if I was prone to such wild imagination. But I am a rational man...or, was one, at any rate.
I was going over some rare and unusual volumes when I came across one in particular that looked very odd. It was only in my hands briefly, for I picked it up and saw the exorbitant price and quickly replaced it. But the title stuck in my head, and still burns there clear in my present state of mental disarray. On the front cover of the massive leather-bound book, emblazoned in gold letters, was the word Vaskliscea. The brief operation of text that I saw looked to be in German.
I left the store without the book, though I did purchase a few fiction paperbacks and a Greenpeace calendar. As I walked to my car, those precious few footsteps...within the trivially infinitesimal segment of time...I knew that somehow my world had changed...no, not changed; mutated. I sensed with a perception that I do not understand, nor have I ever believed in, that I no longer had control of destiny. My life was out of my hands, and from that moment on would be guided by an unseen master in a nameless realm beyond human comprehension. It was as though I had fallen through an unseen portal into a parallel existence, similar yet distorted; related but deviated. I remember my heart skipping a beat at that instant...I remember all the street noises vanishing up into an audio vacuum...I remember the sun growing intolerably bright, then disintegrating into an ashen, dismal orb that appeared to be drawing light rather than radiating it...and I remember a cold sweat blossoming upon my brow...
Oh Jesus...the man...he must know where I am. He appeared first out of the mist-laden horrors that haunt my sleep. His eyes reflect the blank, barren visage of corpses I've been forced to stare awkwardly at during open-casket funerals. His voice drones in a tone that can only generate hopelessness. If I had to name this man, I would name him Fear, for his presence is so foreboding that it could make a man tremble. And this man walked up to me after I had dreamt of his countenance...walked up to me on the street as I tried to escape my fate in the crowded city...and spoke to me. He just began talking as though he and I were of long acquaintance.
"They didn't come looking for you. You happened upon them, now they are your problem. I cannot apologize, because they have every right to do what they do...to exist, to abide."
I didn't answer him, just looked at him with no hope of understanding. I detected no pity or remorse, nor was there any hint of satisfaction to be found within him. I envision that he has bled through the fabric which separates his realm from the one that used to house me...or perhaps I have bled through into his realm from my own. Nevertheless, there is something about him which is not complete; he is hazy...present, but not really there. I could label him a ghost, but I don't think he was ever alive. I have had many opportunities to study my apparent companion. He materializes randomly, offering puzzling words which, if pieced together, might lead me from my nightmare. Thus far, all I have been able to do is define the perimeters of this phantasmagoria from his riddles. His words haunt me as the creatures that torture me endlessly, though hope is entombed within the syllables.
"You cannot kill them, they cannot kill you. That is the simplest rule. These are rudimentary beings...their intelligence runs no further than fundamental survival. Right now, you are their means to survival." His white hands slide over the coffee mug on the table before me. I didn't let him in to my apartment. He always finds a way in. Maybe he comes from the same places my adversaries lurk. His anemic expression draws my eyes. I see no signs of life whatsoever...no traces of red hue, no muscle spasms, no sweat. I never hear a bone cracking when he moves; I never catch sight of his chest expanding or contracting with breath.
Oh Jesus...I must have slipped into sleep again. There is dried blood on my hands...it reaches up my arms...to my shoulders. What have they done to me? I feel no pain, but everywhere around me is blood...what have they done...
The mirror in the bathroom reveals their work. I cannot comprehend why I am not screaming in pain...or at least in shock. The dried blood on my face and neck, especially the thick, caked-on scabs on my lips, guide me to my injury. While in my trance they severed and absconded with my tongue. I should be dead considering the amount of blood that has departed my body. They stopped it though, they must have. They must have stopped the flow so I would not die...just suffer. Air rushes through the cavern in my mouth as I try to vent a cry of agony, more out of despair than physical discomfort. My feet shuffle across the terrazzo floor, towards the door. I can not remain here.
* * *
Already exhaustion invades my body, born in the marrow of my bones and expanding outward, a cancerous enemy. If my eyes close...if I lose my hold on consciousness, then they will attack again. No matter what precautions I devise, eventually the darkness will achieve its ill victory, and I will dissolve into folds of slumber. Here, on the vacant, city streets of twilight, I find no peace. Here, amongst the dumpsters billowing with refuse, amid diseased rodents and rotting corpses of failing souls, I find no peace. Is it my destiny to become one with this league of homeless nomads that wander the inner city?
I invest in a bottle to keep from being alone. The man behind the counter is very wary of my appearance. I still reek the scent of blood, and the stains have sunk deeper into my flesh...they are clinging to me, forming a crust-like armor...not necessarily to keep enemies out, but to imprison me within. My hands shake as I exchange cash for liquor. If the clerk wasn't so anxious to have me out of his store, he would probably detain me and call for the police. I am fortunate I look so insane.
I come to rest in an uninhabited alley. My body creaks in disapproval as I heave it against the concrete wall. The sounds of my environment are still muted, meandering blindly through an abysmal void before finding my ears. However, certain noises break through and I focus on them as best I can. Sirens croon, cats lament in battle...televisions sputter a barrage of words and melodies...drunks preach to themselves. All in a vast cacophony that I conceive represents my requiem.
"They have driven you from your home? Pity. I anticipated that your will was stronger. Regardless, just because you think you are hiding from them doesn't mean they won't bother you. They'll follow you everywhere...after all, they've waited eons to make your acquaintance. They've hungered for blood for centuries, progressed from one continent to the next...until, eventually...you. You are their keeper now, their host."
I finally accept the burden of speech...I open my mouth to pose question upon question upon question to this being...whoever he is...but, Jesus...I have no tongue to form the words.
"Got your tongue, did they? Figures. They keep your ability to communicate restricted. They'll probably break some of your fingers on your writing hand, too. It keeps stories from spreading. Well, I see that you want to ask me what they are, where they come from. You want to communicate...that is the only sign that I require. Now, sit back with your bottle, and I'll give you the story.
"First, accept that you are now worthless. None of your kind will spend effort to aid you. You have become a street person, and as you know, your society shuns such people. Most civilizations do, always have. Mine did, and my civilization is long dead, suffocated under years of desert sands. And there is good reason to shun them...they're all cursed. Just like you."
I whimper reflexively. My eyes can not hold his gaze any longer; I turn and watch ants voyaging across my pant legs while he continues.
"Your same tormentors afflicted my age, and all the epochs since then. They are not immortal, but they cannot die. They cannot die because they don't live. They have never been born. The parasites which plague you are not demons...they are not supernatural sloths which haunt only the sinful.
"I am confusing you. I apologize. Understand, it is my duty to explain your fate. I, alone, have projected my image across time to deliver some sanctuary to the infected. Being so close to the beginning of time, the people of my era were very learned in the aspects of the continuum. We manipulated the flow of time after we were cognizant of its layering processes. Basically, we poked holes in time...some little, some not so little; that depends on who was experimenting. And, like all good explorers, we partook in some...dangerous experiments. We forced slaves to conceive children out of time. By that, I mean between layers of converging ages. Well, the parents returned, but the unborn children remained in the limbo realm. At first, we though that we had merely failed in the conception, but that proved to be a wishful assumption.
"The fetuses -- there are many, at least a hundred -- never developed. But they grew, and they sought nourishment, as do they still. And so, partially out of instinct, partially out of spite, they feed on humans. They reach into the continuum from the outside and attack whoever is nearby...and they drain blood from him. That is the food which sustains them. "Down through the years, humanity has developed a mythology based on these beings...though the origins are long-forgotten. You call them vampires...and you give them very romantic characteristics. Your Dracula, who consumes the blood of his innocent virgin with a kiss and a bite on the necks: He is a far-removed descendent of the children of Vasclecia."
The man fades with the final word of his testimony, leaving me here alone. I now know the nature of my enemy, and that there is no escape from this dungeon. And I also realize that they will not kill me, nor let me die if it is within their power...for I am their meal...I am their mother until death grants me asylum. An unseen umbilical cord anchors me to the nest, and I am powerless.
I close my eyes and concede. Sleep is upon me almost immediately.
"Sleep, my friend...I will keep your corpse until you wake. And the children shall feast. Sleep."