After Death (2 page)

His foot caught on an uneven floor stone and he went down awkwardly, his back thumping against a coffin in the corner. He was trapped.

The creature closed the distance with supernatural speed, its glaring merciless eyes enough to send fear through even an experienced vampire hunter like himself.

In one last frenzied move, Franklin pulled the fallen cane-sword from beneath him and swiftly raised it — And the huge creature came to a bone-jarring halt inches from his face, impaled to the hilt on his blade.

Black ooze streamed to the ground and across Franklin as it screamed and gnashed, the borrowed life pouring out, its talons spasmodically flexing and unflexing as its facial features rapidly changed — first to that of the pale young man, screaming, twisting, a hideous smoke billowing, then rapidly deteriorating, the flesh sloughing off, tissue and bone exposed, and finally withering further, decaying, blackening — until there was finally only ash that separated into dust — and fell harmlessly to the floor.

Franklin lay still, recovering from the horror of this awful encounter.

The confrontation was finally finished, he had prevailed.
But more than that,
the finale seemed to work — He really was finished.
He smiled and exhaled once again — a long, satisfied emptying of his lungs —

And he was home again.

He looked at the computer screen before him, his fingers sitting lightly on the keyboard keys. He read the last part of the page.

“Sherwood Turrow wiped the dusty perspiration from his forehead with his handkerchief and tilted his head heavenward. He quietly murmured to himself in the growing light in the stone basement. “Let light consume the darkness and dispel the memories of the evil that has hidden here.” He took one last glance around the dismal place and made for the stairs. His job here was finished but somehow he knew there would be more ahead. Perhaps many more”.

Franklin smiled, pleased at the text and pressed the print key.

He collected the pages in a neat pile and prepared them for his toughest critic —

His wife.

Every time Frank looked at his wife, Jacqueline, he felt the same. He couldn’t imagine finding anyone that fit him so well and thanked the fates that had brought her into his life. It wasn’t just her looks — although she was exactly the physical type he’d always dreamt of; beautifully slim figure, long straight auburn hair that flowed lightly over her shoulders, and deep green gentle eyes. What was more incredible was her demeanor; kind and caring, and most important of all, dead honest.

The fact that she spoke her mind was something he adored — even when he wished her opinion about something in particular was more akin to his own — like now, when she had just finished reading the manuscript of his latest effort.

He had taken Argus for a very long walk, then gone and bought the weekly groceries at the store, then manically cleaned the house — all in the hopes of killing time and remaining distracted. Now, he waited, statue-like, subduing his final impatience as best he could as he sat in the easy chair across from her on the sofa and she finally set down the pages. She looked over at him with her big green eyes and a slight grin — followed by an actual chuckle —
Not exactly the reaction he was hoping for...

He fought back the impulse to pepper her with questions. As difficult as it was, he knew it was better to wait — The judge would soon speak. And then, finally, she did.

“Hilarious…” She began and he could feel the lump instantly knot up in his throat —
What is she talking about? — There’s nothing remotely hilarious in my story
… She continued.

“A writer who can’t stand the sight of blood chooses to write about, of all things,
vampires
…” She stopped there, eyes laughing, torturing him. He couldn’t take it anymore.

“Enough about that — What’d you think?”

She winced. “You really want to know?”

The hollow dread of disappointment was already flooding through him.
All that work..!
He nodded and swallowed thickly, trying to prepare himself for what was to follow.

“Absolutely.”

She hesitated and frowned, it was obvious she didn’t want to hurt his feelings. Still, her honesty would win out as it always did…

“Could I just get off with saying it sucked?” She asked.

He shook his head “No”.
Prepare yourself
, he thought.
You’re not going to like this…

She exhaled as if to say; “
Okay, you asked for it…
” A deep breath and she began…

“Okay… Well, to begin with, it’s just another typical horror story… The distinguished hero, the Dracula-like villain. There’s nothing new here. But I guess what really bugged me was that there’s always some mechanism, some contrivance, that saves the hero in the end. Every horror story seems to pull this stuff. The silver bullet. Sunlight. In this case, the old stake through the heart in the form of the cane-sword. I don’t get it—if these monsters are dead, you can’t kill ‘em, right? So then the hero’s basically screwed and at the end he gets killed because he’s fighting something that can’t be stopped and that’s it. The End.”

Frank couldn’t believe it. For the first time in a very long time, he actually felt
offended
by his wife’s words.
What she was saying was almost sacrilegious..!

“And what about the villain? What happens to him?”

Jackie pursed her lips and thought about this.

“Well… He’s already dead so I guess he just keeps cruising around… You know, doing whatever it is dead guys do…”

What an affront! How could she say such a thing?

“And what about tradition?” He blurted, voice rising. “Good over evil! What kind of story would it be if the hero’s just screwed?”

She was obviously tired of this discussion and could hear the aggravation in his voice. She spread her hands and lifted her shoulders in an exaggerated shrug.

“I don’t know. More realistic..?”

And with that she retreated to the kitchen to make some coffee.

Argus padded after her and Frank was left alone to wallow in his thoughts.
She was right to end it there. It was less about her wanting to abandon the hero, more about the simple fact that she hadn’t liked his work. When she had said that it was too similar to other stories, his stomach had lurched. He literally felt in his gut that she was right — He had failed again.

A shame washed over him and he felt himself blush. She wouldn’t be patient much longer. The door was closing. If he didn’t prove himself soon, he’d have to return to his previous life.

He chewed at the loose skin of his gums inside his mouth. It wasn’t that teaching children was that bad, it had its rewards… It was the fact that he wasn’t taking full advantage of what he considered to be his real gift —
Writing
. Specifically writing horror stories.

He had to come up with an original break-through idea. Where Poe and Stoker and Shelly and the others had gone before him, he could follow. It was his calling — He knew it was.

But Jackie wouldn’t support him forever. If he were lucky, he’d have one more shot. If he were lucky.

Frank lay in bed, agitated and anxious. His jaw hurt, he’d been gnashing and clamping and unclamping his teeth all day and it had taken its toll. He glanced over and strained to peer through the darkness — Jackie was sound asleep, auburn hair a wild tussle across the pillow, mouth drooped open taking slow deep breaths.

He slid from under the covers as quietly as he could and tip-toed down the short hallway and into the bathroom. He closed the door behind him — He didn’t want any sound to wake her.

He rested his elbows on the cold tile counter and studied his haggard face in the mirror. He wasn’t a vain man — He rarely looked at himself in the mirror, but what he saw now looked decidedly less appealing than what he’d expected. His skin looked splotchy and pimply, his hair seemed like it had receded even further since the day before and his eyes looked rimmed in red, as though he’d been crying.
The stress
, he thought.
I’ve got to get better at managing the stress...

He rubbed his tired jaw and opened and closed his mouth. Every time it got to a certain point, it clicked loudly in his ears.
Great, he’d caused damage he couldn’t afford to have looked into right now with their medical plan…

He splashed some water on his face and decided to shave. He’d let his scrubble go a few days and it looked pretty bad. A clean shave somehow always made him feel better — like he was more presentable and better able to take on the world with fresh and clean skin.

He was just finishing up, eyes turned inward and glazed, focused on that all-consuming quest for an idea for a fresh and juicy horror story.
She was right like she always was. Vampires were all played out—especially if there was no twist to separate it from the hundreds of others…
He dragged the razor across the last strip of bumpy protrusions and jumped as he saw a woman’s reflection next to his in the mirror.

His heart missed a beat until he realized it was Jackie — She’d somehow managed to slip into the bathroom without him hearing… He was about to talk to her, ask her how she’d managed such stealth when he saw the rising thin red line on his neck where he’d accidentally sliced himself.

The bright red blossomed quickly, the line thickening. He felt woozy and began to sag against the counter —
Blood, oh my God, blood!
He reached out with a groping hand and found the sink edge and struggled not to buckle completely. The room began to shimmy in a blending of light and motion and he caught a glimpse of his own ghost white reflection in the mirror. For a split instant, just before his eyes rolled backwards, he was alone in the room. The moment seemed prolonged and slowed as in a dream — He noticed a myriad of details as he toppled — the mirror was suddenly old and cracked, the wallpaper drooped off the walls revealing huge black splotches of dark mold underneath, the air was dank with decay and something worse — something ghastly… something unspeakably and oppressively horrible…

He couldn’t stop his eyes from rolling backwards and he knew he was lost.

Just before he lost consciousness he saw Jackie leap forward and catch him, narrowly protecting him from collision with the sharp edge of the counter top.

And then he felt himself descending — sliding into the bottom of a dark well… Down, down… The infinite blackness welcoming him… Then in a quick swoop, he was returning. Her calm voice grew louder and he looked up to see her turning his face towards hers.

“You’re okay.” She said quietly and firmly. “Don’t look at it, keep the cloth right there, think of something else.”

All the joking about his phobia of blood while having an obsession for writing horror novels was gone from her face. Her expression was kind, caring — precisely what he needed at this moment.

“Where’d you go?” He asked weakly from the floor but she must not have heard him.

She pressed a black washcloth against his neck — black, the color she’d chosen and not by accident. He felt his panic receding, normalcy returning —
She was right, it was nothing, just a scratch.

The color of the washcloth (or absence of color, he couldn’t remember) did its job. He wasn’t supposed to look at it but he couldn’t help it.
There were no traces of blood, he was just drying his neck with a washcloth now
, he told himself…
Still
…, the thought started to creep in,
the blood could force its way through this meager barrier, the vein could’ve been sliced wide, the bright red fluid could push its way out the sides, gush over his body, splash onto the floor…

He tried to think of something else. What had he seen as he was falling? It was so vivid, so detailed… He looked around the room from his position on his back—it was all as it should be, clean, bright, well-kept.

She was staring at him in concern.

“Do you feel better? Do you want my help getting up?”

He was about to answer that he was fine, that he was himself again. He felt those self-recriminating needles of embarrassment that meant that he had completely returned — and then it happened again —

The room was instantly different, like a projector slide being snapped into place.

The wallpaper leaned away from the walls. The mirror was dirty and cracked. The air stank with that horrible stench. Behind Jackie, the shower looked alive with insects crawling over themselves in a towering pile among tile that had fallen into the stained and rusted tub.

He looked up at Jackie, began to direct her attention to the horrors around them.

He was staring right at her when she became diffused around the edges.

What was happening?!? Was he losing his mind?!? How could this be???

Before his eyes she simply dissolved into the air and he was alone.

My mind is breaking
, he thought.
The pressure had finally done its job… I’m… I’m…