The Vampire Genesis

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                                                                                        word count: 2,396

                                                                                        The Vampire Genesis

      On a dark and stormy night I lay in the musty room I had rented, fearing that I might pass out at any moment. I had made a monumental mistake; the kind that can't be undone. Having graduated from Juilliard with a degree in music, my parents begged me to join them for a final summer at the lodge in the Poconos before I began my teaching career, but I had other ideas. Incurable romantic that I am, I envisioned bicycling through the lesser-known hamlets of Northern Italy. I would spend a full month, writing music and experiencing Europe in a way that couldn’t be realized by jetting to the largest cities and visiting the traditional tourist traps. Everything had been fine until I lost my head at a small tavern and got way too drunk with an intriguing woman named Aset and her bulky companion, Ferdinando. As the rolling thunder became distant and the lightning flashes less frequent, the world faded away.

      Gradually I emerged from an unnaturally deep and dreamless sleep to the sound of a female voice, admonishing me to arise. I was disoriented at first by the origination point of the request. It was as if someone was speaking from within my own head rather than calling to me from afar. Looking straight up, I was lying on my back, my head resting on what felt like a soft, satin pillow and although my eyes were open, there was no light; none whatsoever.

      Rapidly approaching a state of panic, I reached up hoping that whoever spoke might take my hand, but before it had traveled a mere foot, it banged into something hard and smooth. Stunned more than injured, I recoiled in surprise. Recovering from the shock, I reached up again, slowly, and examined with both hands what seemed to be a smooth, concave surface; it was cool to the touch, perhaps made of finely polished stone and less than twelve inches above my face. The state of panic resurfaced as I came to realize that I had been prematurely buried.

      Again the voice within my head called to me, but I paid little attention to the suggestion that I should remain calm. Approaching hysteria, I pounded savagely with my fists against the sides of what I feared might be my eternal prison, and then pushed outward with all of my might, to no avail. Frustrated beyond belief, I finally grasped the ludicrously simple suggestion that the mysterious voice persistently repeated.

      “Push up!”

      I pushed upward with all of my might, and to my great relief the lid rose and slid sideways, just enough to admit a thin shaft of early evening light that slipped in from the top right corner of my tomb. I wasn’t blind after all. Reinvigorated by the advent of liberation, I pushed again, and the lid moved far enough to allow me to look up, directly into the face of a pale woman dressed in black with a large man peering over her shoulder. Vague, erotic memories of soft lips on my neck surfaced as I realized it was Aset and Ferdinando, the people I had partied with at that small tavern.

      After pushing the lid further out of my way, I struggled to my feet and asked, “Why didn’t you help me remove the lid? I believed I was going to die in there!”

      Dressed in Goth-subculture black, Aset folded her arms across her chest and silently slid a few steps back. With an amused look on his face, her muscle-bound escort replied,  “I assure you, your dying was never a concern. As for removing the lid to your coffin---”

      “My coffin?” I interrupted. “You make it sound like that piece of stone out of which I just climbed is my property, as if it were my home!”

      Gliding towards me, wearing the expression of a caring, concerned tutor trying to find the right words to help a slow learner, Aset reached out and placed a pallid hand on my shoulder. “Bartholomew, if you truly wish to understand what has happened, you must look into my eyes."

      I was immediately drawn in, sucked into a vortex, and felt myself spinning, soaring, possessing no more self-control than a dry, fallen leaf propelled through the air by a gust of wind. Within her eyes I thought I glimpsed the whole of history dating back to the dawn of civilization, to the very creation of mankind. I found myself in a perfectly tended garden of such majestic beauty I thought for a moment that it must be heaven, a place where the air was redolent with the scent of gardenias in full bloom and the sweet music of a thousand songbirds. A nude female, who might easily have been described as God’s masterpiece, appearing to be close to her eighteenth year, with long, curly, shining black hair and even longer, athletic legs, balanced on her toes underneath a tree. She was straining to reach the ripened fruit that hung tantalizingly from the branches, just above and beyond her reach.

      After spending a considerable amount of time keenly observing the maiden, a serpent of incredible size and girth descended from one of the lowest tree limbs. It slithered down and coiled about the trunk of the tree, its forked tongue licking the air. When it became evident that the young female was aware of, but was not concerned in the least with its presence, the beast spoke to her.

      “Why do you desire the fruit of this tree?” the snake inquired. “The garden is filled with all manner of bushes and trees that produce delicious and far more easily harvested fruit.”

      Unashamed of her nudity in the presence of this scaly voyeur, the young female continued to stretch upward, coming close but always just missing the lowest objects of her desire. “I have tasted of all the other fruits in the garden,” she replied, “and the fruit of this tree is the only fruit in the garden on which I have not dined.” She leapt upward, grunting with the effort, narrowly missing the prize she sought.

      “But ssss-surely,” the snake hissed, sliding a bit further down the trunk of the tree, “the fruit of this tree cannot be worth the time and effort that you expend. What if you finally taste the fruit and find it to be bitter and unpalatable?”

      “Then at least I would know,” the woman answered, her eyes remaining fixed on the dangling piece of fruit that she had narrowly missed with her last jump. “The frustration is unbearable. Until I can actually experience its flavor, I can only presume the degree of pleasure I would derive from it. As long as it remains a mystery, I shall imagine it to be an exquisite delicacy.”

      “Indeed,” the snake agreed. “I have relished watching you from this tree for many days now. You have an uncanny zest for life that is most refreshing, and as I look upon you, I find myself wondering what it would be like to possess a body with smooth and supple radiant skin rather than the dull, yellowish brown scales with which I am covered. It must be wonderful to have the ability to balance and travel about on extremities such as yours… those long, lovely limbs.”

    The serpent fell quiet, staring intently at the slender arms that reached upward for the tempting fruit and then at the shapely, well-toned legs whose youthful muscles tensed before each upward spring. Appearing and then disappearing silently, like lightning from a threatening storm cloud on a distant horizon, the thin, forked tongue of the beast shot out several times before it continued. “Because I have become familiar with your plight, it pains me to see you sssss-suffer. I understand the way you feel. If whatever you desire is always just beyond your reach, even if you have much for which to be thankful, it can prevent you from truly appreciating that which you have.” 

      “Precisely,” said the young woman. Nodding in agreement, she turned away from the fruit, took several steps towards the trunk around which the serpent remained coiled, and looked directly into the unblinking, reptilian eyes that were glowering from the snake’s massive head, now dangling a scant foot away from her. Impressed by the wisdom of the serpent and unintimidated by its proximity, she commented, “The male with whom I live and who treats me as if I were nothing more than a mere possession will not come to this place. He forbids me to come here. He calls this ‘the tree of knowledge’ and has warned me not to partake of its fruit.” Her long, black tresses shifted across her forehead, covering one of her extraordinarily green eyes momentarily as she cocked her head to the left. She reached up, brushed the hair away and inquired, “You live here in this tree, do you not?”

      “I do,” the snake answered.

      “How is it that you are of another species and have known me for only a short while, yet compared to my own mate you seem to better understand my feelings?”

      The serpent bowed its head, feigning modesty, and replied, “How could one reside amongst the branches of the tree of knowledge, dining upon its fruit each day and not derive great benefit?”

      “Then tell me, serpent, for I am in anguish,” she pressed a hand to her firm, bare breast, accentuating her plight and the urgency of her petition, “Is this delicacy worth having?”

      The snake paused briefly, its forked tongue flicking out with increased frequency from between its formidable fangs. “Oddly enough, I have pondered a remarkably similar question regarding something that I greatly desire.” It was at that very moment the snake struck, sinking its long fangs deeply into her neck and injecting its venom. Paralyzed by the poison, the vivacious visitor collapsed to the ground, shuddering, unable to flee as the snake fed upon her blood, totally draining her of her life fluids and absorbing her very essence rather than simply devouring her body. By the time the serpent had finished, all that was left of the once vibrant beauty with the glowing, pink skin was a wrinkled pile of dull, dried flesh and bones under a tangled mop of dark hair.

      Suddenly my mind and vision cleared, and as I looked into the face of the spellbinding goddess, a great empathy for her based on what she must have endured through the centuries swelled within me. I recognized the features, which, though faded, were undeniable, causing me to exclaim, “You were the beautiful woman in the garden! The evil serpent’s venom somehow transformed you into what you have become, didn't it?”

      “No, Bartholomew.” Vigorously she shook her head back and forth, causing the curls of her long, black hair to roll over her shoulders in waves, “I was not the beautiful woman.” She paused and our eyes met, mine blinking and then watering from the emerald intensity of her steady, unblinking gaze and the incredible significance of the message she delivered. “I was the snake.”

      My hands flew to cover my mouth as I gasped, involuntarily, “Oh my…”

    “There is more, Bartholomew, there is more.”

      Once again, I found myself in the garden. There on the ground were the withered remains of the young female, while only a few feet away lay the serpent in the grass, grotesquely swollen from the considerable meal it had ingested. After a few moments the serpent began to twist and turn, wriggling within its skin, which loosened and began to detach as the beast increased its squirming. Suddenly a slit opened up down the scaly back, from just behind the head all the way to the tail. A strange, slurping sound accompanied the ghastly sight of dark fluids spewing from the middle of the reptile as the crevice widened, exposing a pulsating, pink bulge that grew at an alarming rate until it became apparent that the developing tumor was the only portion of the beast that remained alive.

      To my surprise, the quivering pink mass began to rise, magically forming what became arms and legs until the nude figure of a young woman stood complete before me, her damp face flushed with triumph. Opening her long-lashed eyelids to reveal sparkling green eyes, she began to wipe away thick strands of gelatinous mucous that dripped from her glistening flesh. The pinnacle of feminine pulchritude stepped gracefully from the serpent’s carcass without so much as glancing in the direction of the emaciated corpse that lay nearby. She opened her mouth to lick her lips with a long, pink tongue and in doing so exposed two abnormally long upper teeth that extended downward, curving over the top of her full, lower lip. Stretching and flexing her newly acquired appendages, she nodded at them in approval before turning to leave, as in the distance the voice of a man anxiously called out for her.

      “Eve, Eve, where are you?”

      “Coming, Adam.”

      Again my vision cleared and my eyes once again focused upon the being whose gaunt features, although changed by time and no doubt by the very nature of her existence, still retained faded vestiges of the beauty that once danced beneath the “Tree of Knowledge.”

      “You see, Bartholomew,” she explained, “this is why I am known as the mother of all mankind, the giver of life. I have been known by many names, including Aset to the Egyptians, Isis to the Greeks, and Eve to Jews and Christians. All of mankind can trace its beginnings back to me. Throughout the centuries I have watched over my children and in a very few instances, have selected special ones.” Her slightly parted lips exposed her fangs as she paused momentarily before adding, “Artists such as you, for immortality.”

      My knees felt weak and I half-sat, half-collapsed upon the edge of the cold stone crypt from which I had emerged. A bloodsucking demon, perhaps Satan, was the mother of all mankind! No wonder sin was such a natural and integral part of humanity. Wishing that I had accepted my parents' invitation to spend the summer with them, I reached up with a trembling hand to massage the tender spot on my neck. Now, what was I going to do?

                                                                                          The End
word count: 2,396

If you enjoyed the Vampire Genesis and would like to see the story from which it was taken (The Vampire Virtuoso), please use the following link:

ID: 1466170   (Rated: 13+) Title: The Vampire Virtuoso  Description: The Piano's inventor becomes a vampire with a mission By: George

"Welcome to my imagination."