Death in a Cabin

Death in a Cabin

I have killed without emotion.

The first was my father. Oh, how I loved him! Yet, I killed him.

I have murdered many since then. The strong and weak, the young and old, the beautiful and ugly; from all have I taken.

Like a camera, everyone has a control to set the aperture into his soul. The smallest aperture allows only the slimmest shade of light into the darkness that resides in each of us. One can barely touch such a soul even if one risks all. You may say each of us has the power to change the aperture. But what if it were jammed?

The curse invaded, minimizing me into a distant element. Now, I watch as the core takes delight. Yes, I’m a vampire. One of the new kind. The sun holds no terror for me nor does The Cross or garlic. You can kill me with blade, hammer, or bullet. Yet, I have advantages. Easily can I anticipate moves of an adversary. I can sense a life though only of the uninflected. Walls of steel and concrete cannot hide the essence of such a life force.

The balance in the battle between good and evil has shifted. Our numbers are increasing for our saliva has the power to infect.

I have drifted into the mountains seeking haven from my new desires, and at last have I found this cabin far from evil enticement. Slowly have I come to understand the nature of this infection. It is of a fever rising with detection of life not infected. In presence of such a life, hallucination and illusion overwhelm all goodness. No matter that the one in front of you is your most dearly loved, only the need for blood fills the mind till life is gone.

The scourge resides in insects. Insects! Everywhere they lurk, hiding and waiting. Laying eggs in the millions, creatures so fecund will never be eradicated. Once bit, and one is born to damnation.

Now, all that is left is to end my life.

**********

Jason was coming up the trail carrying a loaded rifle. He’d left the car off the road at the bottom of the hill and hidden it as best as he could. He looked at his wife, Merle, searching for signs of exhaustion. She was out of breath from carrying their two year old daughter, Sandy, on her back all morning. He ached to help her, but he had to be unburdened to react quickly to any attack.

Ever since they had fled their rural community they had known no respite from terror. No longer could it be called home except to the vampires there. Rationally, he could no longer accept reality. He knew he would be dead or worse, a vampire, if not for Merle. She had insisted on escaping into the mountains, packing little more than his hunting rifle and two pistols. Perhaps the natural instinct of a mother to protect her child had enabled her to act as the world was flushed down to Hell.

A vivid flashback of the first encounter filled Jason’s mind: a lone building with a gas pump outside, their car pulling up in a cloud of dust, inside, an old iron stove in the center, sagging shelves full of boxes and cans lining the walls.

He blinked hard trying to stop the rewinding of events. He succeeded for only a moment, like a glitch on a tape, then the reel kept rolling. The image focused and colors whooshed in: going through the door leading into the connecting home, walking into a small kitchen with splotches of blood on the walls, pulling out his pistol, an overweight woman in her fifties, wearing a bloody dress and apron, approaching, warning her to freeze, a blast of fire from behind.

Merle shooting, again, and again.

In the yard, next to a partially dug grave, they found a man’s body drained of blood.

He shook his head and snapped out of it.

Continuing up the trail, he rounded a bend and saw the cabin, the roof, a red speck, beckoning in the green background. Jason exhaled in relief. Having last seen it as a boy, he had doubted it would be there. He motioned for Merle to rest and proceeded alone.

Inside the cabin a weary man laid down his pen, and then, whatever was lurking in the gutters of his soul, perhaps disturbed by his confession, stirred and raised its head. Time was reeled back, moments were searched, and replayed. Shapes swirled into pastel colors. His screams of resistance were twisted into squeals.

He was back in his father’s vacation home standing on the edge of the lawn. His father was sitting in a folding chair in the shade of the patio. They were drinking beer, and talking about women, sharing their triumphs and failures. And, then, he’d been bitten and rammed into Hell. The invader raped his conscious, squeezed him behind a door and slammed it shut, then glued his eye to the pinhole.

He watched himself slamming his father to the ground, pounding his head until the tiles cracked and broke, thus ending all resistance so he could slash his neck to drink his blood. The memory of that warmth flowing into his chest drove an ice pick into his heart.

He was yanked back. His pulse quickened; he had sensed a life. Moaning, he fought against the beginning of the metamorphosis. The trance overpowered. With a rush, details intruded. The sound of footsteps on soft soil and the rapid beating of a heart high on adrenaline pounded into his ears. He climbed onto the sill above the door and put his hands against the rafters.

Jason approached the cabin. Crouching to the window, he pressed his ear to the wall. Hearing nothing, he peered inside and saw two beds, a table, and two chairs. He leaned his rifle against the wall, took out a pistol, and stepped to the door.

The vampire trembled with anticipation and pressed himself against the wall. Saliva drooled down his chin and spattered onto the wooden floor.

Jason gripped the door handle, and turned it, cracking open the door. He stepped back and gave a powerful kick. The door flung open. Jason jumped inside. The vampire roared and leapt down, dropping onto Jason’s back. They crashed against a chair. Jason fell onto the floor on his side. Instinctively, he rolled. Face to face, they snarled. Jason pressed his gun against the vampire. The bullet ripped through flesh and bones. The vampire rose screaming. A mix of glee and disgust overwhelmed Jason as he pulled the trigger again and again.

Merle heard the shots, and, with Sandy on her back, ran to the cabin. She pulled out her pistol and cocked it.

A searing bolt of pain streaked up Jason’s left arm. He saw bubbles of blood bursting from a cut. A pungent smell of vinegar invaded his nostrils. He turned his head away, and saw the letter on the table. Reading it, he understood his fate. It slipped from his hand and see-sawed down to land on the bloody chest of the dead vampire. His vision blurred then came into sharp focus. The reach of his senses exploded. He felt two lives approaching. Jason raised the gun against his head. He fired.