It's been an uneventful day. I worked all day. Nothing happened at work. It's difficult to say honestly, "nothing happened today," because something ALWAYS happens. But honestly, the most exciting thing that happened at work was a sizable number of rubber bands collecting on my arms over the hours. Great, enh? I stared blankly at the rubber bands for awhile because there wasn't much better to do. things should get better though: I have geology class tonight with Jane and Claire... Yee-haw! Oh, yes, and I did see Brian today: adorable as ever, but late for class. We didn't get to talk. I feel like a middle-school kid again: desperately in crush, feeling just slightly inadequate, and probably acting like a total dork around him. I'll probably see him tonight, because he's ALWAYS hanging out in Jane and Claire's hallway.
I couldn't think up any brilliant topics today. I heard a Sarah McLachlan song that reminded me of Neil, and I'm almost tempted to write about him, but that story will take a good two or three entries, not to mention that I just don't know if I'm ready to talk about him yet. Maybe I'll just start telling about him, and finish later...
I still have the suede vest Neil bought me with the money he got when he sold his CD's. I never wear it, but I kept it. Somewhere, I still have the audio tape of his voice answering my "research" questions about vampires. And of course, I still have the Morracan coin he gave me with the pentacle engraved on the back. I will never be rid of Neil, no matter how hard I try. I could throw away my pictures of him, melt the coin and give the vest to the Salvation Army, but he's infiltrated my brain and my life too much to throw HIM away completely.
I really believed him for awhile. I really believed in vampires. Looking back, it's humiliating to admit that, and I'm sure a few of my loyal readers (if I have any) are raising their eyebrows at me. I don't know what was wrong with me that made me believe Neil. I really wouldn't think of myself as being that pathetic, but...
It all started with Neil. "How do you feel about the subject of vampyres?" he purred one day, his accent changing from an upstate New Yorker to a displaced Brit. "Um... I haven't seen Interview yet," I replied. "We're vampires," piped up Marianne, her eyes suddenly darkening with a gothy-glare, but her voice just a little too perky; no one was going to mistake her for anything gothier than a kid in a black lacy shirt. They told me their story. Erich was there and he challenged everything they said, being a total prick about the whole thing. But I pretended to give them the benefit of the doubt.
THAT whole deal started when I told my friends about some WEIRD stuff I'd found under my brother's bed while on a routine nosey-sister search. Some of my clothing - underwear, mostly - was shredded to bits with a scissors, and an entire drawer was filled with toy guns, some of which looked awfully real. There were handcuffs, and there was more porn than I have ever seen in my entire life. THEN I found the bullets: an entire box. It creeped me out, and I got it into my head that my brother was some kind of psychotic killer just waiting to be let out. I called Erich, who suggested that we find out something about the bullets. His friend could shed no light on them, although he was a target-shooter. So we went to see Neil on my request. "He told me he knows something about guns," I told Erich.
Neil asked for some scrap paper. He sat at the kitchen table (no one else was home) scribbling on the scrap paper and whispering to himself in perfectly-enunciated-but-inaudible words. I looked on, feeling worried and sick. "You got about two hundred sitting here," Neil finally reported.
"Two hundred what?"
"Dollars worth of ammunition," he replied. "This one here is called a mankiller, and that's the most expensive. It's designed to do exactly what the name implies. You can't get 'em easily because they're police-issued."
"WHAT?"
"I'm thinking there's a lot going on with your brother that maybe you don't know about."
I burst into tears. Erich tried to comfort me, but I pushed him away. Neil stared at me quietly. "I'm going to take a look around his room if you don't mind," said Neil. We all trooped up to my brother's room, where Marianne found another box of shredded clothing in his closet. I sobbed. "He's some kind of freak and he's violent and I don't know what I'm going to DO!" I wailed. "What if he has a gun? What if he's planning on killing me?"
"Come downstairs," said Neil. He led me out of the room. "There's a lot of negative energy in your brother's room," he said. "I sensed it on his things. Marianne, touch this," he ordered, holding out one of the bullets.
Marianne held the bullet in her fist and closed her eyes. When she opened them, the eyes no longer seemed to belong to Marianne. She hissed. She grabbed Neil's arm, led him away, and screamed from soemwhere in my house. It was a roar, a growl, an anger-filled howl all in one. I believe Neil slapped her out of whatever weird state she was in, and they returned momentarily; Neil was bleeding from a gash on his throat. "He's possessed," said Neil, confidentially so that Erich wouldn't hear.
"Whatever that was, whatever left the bad energy in that bullet was NOT human," said Marianne. "I felt it, oh that was HORRIBLE." Neil nodded: "She did THIS to me with her nails," he said.
I cried harder.
"We can help, though," Neil assured me.
"How?"
"We'll do a protective spell. Seal his room."
So they "sealed" his room. Neil mumbled a few words behind closed eyes and an outstretched palm, groping along the frame of my brother's door as he did it. I didn't know what higher powers Neil thought he was communicating with, or what language he was speaking, but it was more than reassuring to watch that hand move across my brother's door. Obviously, the evidence pointed to something REALLY weird going on with my brother, and possession seemed just as likely to my hysterical mind as a hidden weird-kid world.
Then they told me the story of the vampires. They said they were vampires. They said Neil was the first vampire: created by Lilith-the-fallen-angel-of-lust and her partner Dominique-the-fallen-angel-of-insanity. All of this had taken place in Wyldewood, land of the elves, in Scotland, around 1100 or so (the details slip my mind right now), where Neil had lived with his sisters. It was a WEIRD story. But I let them talk, and I didn't laugh, mainly because I was freaked out about my brother, but also because they were my friends and for whatever bullshit they could throw out at me, they meant a lot to me and I wasn't going to be a bitch about it.
My father was out of town and my brothers were staying with my mom. There was no way I was staying in that house that night. My house is big and creepy, and when there's no one else in it, it's even bigger and creepier. Now, with a possible demon waiting to possess me, I wasn't sleeping anywhere near that place alone. Erich drove all of us to a secluded place near a river, where Neil finished his story and gave me the Morrocan coin as a protective charm. "It's just a coin," he said, "with no real power of its own. But there's a pentacle on the back, which my friend liked when he got it; he put a protective spell on it when he saw that and that will be there for you. Carry it with you."
I slept next to Neil that night; he and Marianne were staying in David's apartment, and their room was furnished only with a couch and some clothing on the floor. Marianne, who had her period and didn't feel good (I think that was her excuse) got the couch, and Neil and I shared the floor. I clutched the coin all night and woke to found my palm sweating around it in the morning. All night, "Silent All These Years," had been on repeat, and I will never hear that song without feeling Neil's breath on my hair as I lay on Marianne's clothes.
I stayed with them the next night too. The vampire story had had time to sink in, and, while I still believe it was complete bullshit, it was an INTERESTING story, and I just KNEW I was going to be writing it down. I memorized as much of it as I could so that I could scribble it down later. The next night, the three of us: Marianne, Neil, and I, raided David's refrigerator where we found some cherries from the farmer's market and some Bully Hill Love My Goat red wine. Neil poured each of us a glass, and he and Marianne sipped delicately at theirs. I refused at first, but decided it was as good a time as any to have my first sip of alcohol.
I didn't get drunk, just slightly tipsy. I fell asleep on David's futon and woke up with my arms around David himself the next morning, which was a little embarassing, but more than enough to put a smile on my face. When Marianne and Neil woke up, they were smiling at me and asked if I still had my enormous crush on David. The three of us spent that day together too. It was a hot day. We went swimming in a reservoir near my high school. Nude. I still have the pictures.
They were my best friends. It was no big deal swimming nude with them. It was just a fun thing for three friends to do on a hot humid day. I loved them. We were kids, we were free, we were happy, we had our lives in front of us, we were angst-ridden and we were bonded together. Eternally.
And that was how it began...
Love,
Anastasia*
(the name they gave me upon my "initiation," which they said is the name of my past-life incarnation...)
-AKA-
HELENA*
"You come out at night 'cause that's when the energy comes, and the dark side's light, and the vampires roam... You strut your rasta wear, and your suicide poem, and a cross from a faith that died before Jesus came... You're building a mystery..." --"Building a Mystery," by Sarah McLachlan