Naomi Kramer's Blog - Posts Tagged "vampire"
Floyd - Excerpt from Vampire Suicide Agency
This is an excerpt from an upcoming book called Vampire Suicide Agency.
In his wildest daydreams, John never saw God calling him to THIS ministry. If only theological college had included a course on restoring vampires to the family of God, he'd have a clue what he's doing.
Hands in the night. That's the first inkling I had that my day was turning bad. They came from nowhere, clamped around my arms, hauled me into a narrow not-quite-alley. Then teeth in my neck as I screamed, lips kissing, nuzzling, sucking the life out of me. A spurt of hot, salty liquid filling my mouth when my energy had gone and my struggles had ceased. It tasted like beef broth and blood sausage and goodness and life. I drank and sucked and drank, snarled at the one whose inner-elbow I suckled, when she tried to pull away. Hard hands gripped my arms again, yanked me away, countered my feeble struggles. I wailed as two dark forms ran silently down the alley, out into a street, leaving me utterly alone.
I had been on my way home from a prayer meeting when it happened. Someone spoke of a little-mentioned passage in Acts, where a married couple is stricken dead for lying to their fellow church members, using God as their witness. God doesn't appreciate being called upon for evil, he said. Yeah, I thought, that sounds like an incredibly dumb thing to do. An hour later I was lying on the ground in the piss and muck, a trickle of borrowed blood leaking from my mouth, floating on a cushion of pain and confusion, and falling asleep.
I woke when church bells clanged loudly, so loudly that they seemed right next to my ear. I opened my eyes to a weak light filtering down past the buildings, enough to see the cobblestones under my head, not enough to see the smears of grime that must be on them. My nose had no such problem in discovering that someone had pissed and shat somewhere near me - the smell was bad, the sort of smell you associate with plague diarrhoea. Foetid. I moved convulsively, shoved myself into a sitting position, and discovered that I was the source of the stink. At least, the movement caused sensations which I was sure meant I'd soiled myself sometime during the night.
Night. Why had I been lying on the ground, in an alley, sleeping, soiling myself? I frowned, trying to remember where I'd been the night before. Had I been out with friends? No, not on a Saturday, that was prayer meeting night, and it must be Sunday now, the bells were still ringing. Prayer meeting. Walking home. Hands on my arms, a mouth on my neck. I moved a shaking hand to touch my neck - nothing. Had I had some sort of apoplexy? Was I too young for that?
I rose unsteadily to my feet, nose wrinkling at the stench surrounding me. Home. Bath. I could work out the rest later.
In his wildest daydreams, John never saw God calling him to THIS ministry. If only theological college had included a course on restoring vampires to the family of God, he'd have a clue what he's doing.
Hands in the night. That's the first inkling I had that my day was turning bad. They came from nowhere, clamped around my arms, hauled me into a narrow not-quite-alley. Then teeth in my neck as I screamed, lips kissing, nuzzling, sucking the life out of me. A spurt of hot, salty liquid filling my mouth when my energy had gone and my struggles had ceased. It tasted like beef broth and blood sausage and goodness and life. I drank and sucked and drank, snarled at the one whose inner-elbow I suckled, when she tried to pull away. Hard hands gripped my arms again, yanked me away, countered my feeble struggles. I wailed as two dark forms ran silently down the alley, out into a street, leaving me utterly alone.
I had been on my way home from a prayer meeting when it happened. Someone spoke of a little-mentioned passage in Acts, where a married couple is stricken dead for lying to their fellow church members, using God as their witness. God doesn't appreciate being called upon for evil, he said. Yeah, I thought, that sounds like an incredibly dumb thing to do. An hour later I was lying on the ground in the piss and muck, a trickle of borrowed blood leaking from my mouth, floating on a cushion of pain and confusion, and falling asleep.
I woke when church bells clanged loudly, so loudly that they seemed right next to my ear. I opened my eyes to a weak light filtering down past the buildings, enough to see the cobblestones under my head, not enough to see the smears of grime that must be on them. My nose had no such problem in discovering that someone had pissed and shat somewhere near me - the smell was bad, the sort of smell you associate with plague diarrhoea. Foetid. I moved convulsively, shoved myself into a sitting position, and discovered that I was the source of the stink. At least, the movement caused sensations which I was sure meant I'd soiled myself sometime during the night.
Night. Why had I been lying on the ground, in an alley, sleeping, soiling myself? I frowned, trying to remember where I'd been the night before. Had I been out with friends? No, not on a Saturday, that was prayer meeting night, and it must be Sunday now, the bells were still ringing. Prayer meeting. Walking home. Hands on my arms, a mouth on my neck. I moved a shaking hand to touch my neck - nothing. Had I had some sort of apoplexy? Was I too young for that?
I rose unsteadily to my feet, nose wrinkling at the stench surrounding me. Home. Bath. I could work out the rest later.
Excerpt - Vampire Suicide Agency
Another excerpt from VSA, one of my books-in-progress (there are usually at least three). This is from the very start of the book.
"Your God is a monster!" screamed the young, pale biker stalking down the aisle between pews. "You preach – week after sodding week – about love and forgiveness! And then I come here and – look!"
He reached the minister, grabbed his shoulder with one hand and his cross with the other, and ripped the chain from around his throat. He hissed, grimacing with pain, and shoved a blistering, smoking hand in the man's face.
"LOOK! THAT'S how much your God loves and cherishes those less fortunate! Burn them! Kill them! Drive them off if you can't kill them! How is that love, you moron?"
He screamed with anger and pain, shoved the minister away, and threw the cross at the falling man.
"FUCK your God!" he yelled and ran out of the chapel.
Pastor John Lutke pulled himself to his feet, picked up his cross from the floor, and sighed as he looked at the broken chain. That guy had ripped open skin on his neck tearing it off, he realised. Oh boy – another fun night on Oxford Street.
Oxford Street, Sydney, is an inner-city area best known for its highrise offices, nightclubs, sex workers and drugs. With the pleasure-seekers and the oblivion-seekers came, as always, the predators. The drug dealers, the pimps, the vampires – all feeding from the easy pickings of people uncaring and uncared for. As soon as he'd been ordained, John had gone against all advice from friends and hierarchy and started a Lutheran chapel in a closed-down nightclub. Ironically enough, he thought, he'd been able to get old-fashioned wooden pews and altar for it – because a larger, richer, far more popular brother church had been upgrading to padded chairs and modern fittings.
John looked around and sighed. The place was dark, looked more like a warehouse or cult meeting-place than a church. The walls were black, the high ceiling black - probably to avoid distracting the eye from the music and light shows, he figured. No stained glass – hardly any glass at all in fact, and what there was, was still painted black. All windows high up near the ceiling, 5 or 6 metres away. Spotlight tubes still dotted the ceiling. He looked at the dark shapes up there in the gloom, and had an idea. He hurried to the bank of controls, and frowned, confused. You'd need a manual or a month of training to work this thing properly. He shrugged, and briefly flicked each switch to ON until he had the one he was looking for. Right. Now to turn it... the spot gyrated wildly around the walls until he found a measure of control over the tiny joystick, and centred it on the large cross on top of the altar. There. A reminder of why he was doing all this. He sighed again, touched the graze on his neck and winced. Time to eat something – and wash his neck.
****
"Because he's a bloody hypocrite, that's why!"
"And you're not surrounded by them daily?"
"But - he preaches lies! He tells people there's hope, there's something better for all after death – for hell's sake, look at me, aren't I a perfect example of why that's bullshit?"
"He'd argue that your soul's having a ball, I reckon."
"Oh, yeah, and leavin' me to scrape a miserable existence without it? What sort of all-powerful God would let that sort of crap happen?"
"Preaching to the choir, Fritz."
"STOP fucking calling me that!"
"Sorry, long habit... Floyd."
Floyd stopped pacing long enough to glare at the vampire lounging on the beanbag in the corner.
"Moron! You don't give a shit about this, do you?"
Marcus shrugged, stood up.
"They're just food, mate, why bother getting pissed at them? Do you get upset at a cow for mooing wrong?"
Floyd glared.
"Come on," Marcus said, "Let's go out and have fun, OK? I'm hungry, and the buffet'll be out by now."
"I don't want to go out!"
"You're cranky. You need food or you'll kill someone soon."
"Maybe that fucking preacher," Floyd muttered, but followed.
"Your God is a monster!" screamed the young, pale biker stalking down the aisle between pews. "You preach – week after sodding week – about love and forgiveness! And then I come here and – look!"
He reached the minister, grabbed his shoulder with one hand and his cross with the other, and ripped the chain from around his throat. He hissed, grimacing with pain, and shoved a blistering, smoking hand in the man's face.
"LOOK! THAT'S how much your God loves and cherishes those less fortunate! Burn them! Kill them! Drive them off if you can't kill them! How is that love, you moron?"
He screamed with anger and pain, shoved the minister away, and threw the cross at the falling man.
"FUCK your God!" he yelled and ran out of the chapel.
Pastor John Lutke pulled himself to his feet, picked up his cross from the floor, and sighed as he looked at the broken chain. That guy had ripped open skin on his neck tearing it off, he realised. Oh boy – another fun night on Oxford Street.
Oxford Street, Sydney, is an inner-city area best known for its highrise offices, nightclubs, sex workers and drugs. With the pleasure-seekers and the oblivion-seekers came, as always, the predators. The drug dealers, the pimps, the vampires – all feeding from the easy pickings of people uncaring and uncared for. As soon as he'd been ordained, John had gone against all advice from friends and hierarchy and started a Lutheran chapel in a closed-down nightclub. Ironically enough, he thought, he'd been able to get old-fashioned wooden pews and altar for it – because a larger, richer, far more popular brother church had been upgrading to padded chairs and modern fittings.
John looked around and sighed. The place was dark, looked more like a warehouse or cult meeting-place than a church. The walls were black, the high ceiling black - probably to avoid distracting the eye from the music and light shows, he figured. No stained glass – hardly any glass at all in fact, and what there was, was still painted black. All windows high up near the ceiling, 5 or 6 metres away. Spotlight tubes still dotted the ceiling. He looked at the dark shapes up there in the gloom, and had an idea. He hurried to the bank of controls, and frowned, confused. You'd need a manual or a month of training to work this thing properly. He shrugged, and briefly flicked each switch to ON until he had the one he was looking for. Right. Now to turn it... the spot gyrated wildly around the walls until he found a measure of control over the tiny joystick, and centred it on the large cross on top of the altar. There. A reminder of why he was doing all this. He sighed again, touched the graze on his neck and winced. Time to eat something – and wash his neck.
****
"Because he's a bloody hypocrite, that's why!"
"And you're not surrounded by them daily?"
"But - he preaches lies! He tells people there's hope, there's something better for all after death – for hell's sake, look at me, aren't I a perfect example of why that's bullshit?"
"He'd argue that your soul's having a ball, I reckon."
"Oh, yeah, and leavin' me to scrape a miserable existence without it? What sort of all-powerful God would let that sort of crap happen?"
"Preaching to the choir, Fritz."
"STOP fucking calling me that!"
"Sorry, long habit... Floyd."
Floyd stopped pacing long enough to glare at the vampire lounging on the beanbag in the corner.
"Moron! You don't give a shit about this, do you?"
Marcus shrugged, stood up.
"They're just food, mate, why bother getting pissed at them? Do you get upset at a cow for mooing wrong?"
Floyd glared.
"Come on," Marcus said, "Let's go out and have fun, OK? I'm hungry, and the buffet'll be out by now."
"I don't want to go out!"
"You're cranky. You need food or you'll kill someone soon."
"Maybe that fucking preacher," Floyd muttered, but followed.
