The Redeemed

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The Redeemed

The car crashed and exploded. I remember nothing else. I woke in the hospital following five and a half months of lying in a coma. After a day of repeatedly questioning them, the doctor finally told me that my wife was dead.

Nothing seemed real then. Time had stopped. My leg was stretched high above me, cast in white. It looked like a Michelangelo carving, except its was ugly and unshapely -- the result of several operations to heal shattered bones. One of my eyes was patched. It was uncertain whether it would ever function again. They’d operated on that, too. The doctor said I must wait to find out if I had vision in my right eye.

Sometimes it hurt to breathe, but that was no worse than the ache of living after hearing my only love had been buried in St. John’s Cemetery. I hadn't even said "goodbye."

I blinked. I still had one good eye. It looked out through the window, and it wept. Shannon. Shannon. My wife, my love. Dead. Buried. Gone.

I should have been the one driving. I knew she was tired, but she’d insisted. I’d only shut my eyes for a second. The abruptness of it equaled the injustice of her ending. I should have died, not my sweet Shannon.

For days I was anchored on my shipwrecked bed. Then the nurses forced me up, made me walk about. They tried to make me live.

But what was life without my Shannon? My beautiful, beloved Shannon. I wept silently over my overly sweet red gelatine. I wept in the bed and in the hall where I walked day after day, learning about crutches, about pain, about being heart-crippled.

The minister came by. He wore his Bible like a sword. He’d brought me one, but it lay limply, unused, by my bed. God had stolen Shannon from me. What use did I have for Him now?

The minister got up to leave. “I’ll be back,” he told me. “You must accept. We just weren’t meant to understand everything. Only God can do that.”

After he left, I lay under the scratchy, starched white sheets of the bed and mulled the minister's words. How could I ever accept what God had done? He'd taken my wife, my Shannon. I felt like spitting. “I hate you,” I whispered heavenward.

No sooner had I said those words than an orderly came into my room. He closed the door behind him, which I thought was strange, for not even when changing my bedpan, had the hospital staff had the good sense to offer privacy.

The blue-clothed orderly walked toward me slowly. It was nighttime, and the lights were dim. Yet, eerily the man’s eyes glowed red as blood.

“Who are you?” I called out, suddenly afraid.

He held his finger to his lips. “I can offer you relief,” he told me.

His eyes penetrated. I could see myself within them. I looked deeply. It was me reflected back -– me, with my scarred body, blistered and oozing with sores. Slowly, the image changed, and I saw myself healing -- the ruby-red, bubbled skin becoming smooth flesh once again, my eyes becoming whole, my leg healing so I could walk again, walk without crutches and with a light and agile spring.

“Right,” I laughed bitterly, not questioning the sight the strange orderly had given me. “And how would you do all that?”

He walked closer. I saw him more clearly then. His features were perfect; he looked like an angel.

I asked if I’d guessed right, but he laughed. “A dark angel, one could say,” he spoke in dulcet tones like a violin -- no, more like a deep-throated cello.

A second shiver of fear swept through me . I had turned away from God, but I hadn’t meant to invite the devil. Or had I?

“Are you Satan?” I whispered, trembling.

He smiled. For the first time I saw his teeth. There was no need to question further then. I knew what he was -- vampire, lord of the night.

“What do you want with me?” I cried out.

“Sh!” he hushed me, placing his hand across my mouth. “Stop worrying. You must give me permission first, my friend. I cannot take what is not freely given.”

To say I relaxed would be pushing it a bit, but I breathed in again, and listened.

“I can heal your body. I can make you straight and supple," he told me. "You can choose a perfect body, or you can remain the cripple you are now. You do know you will never walk right again, or see with both eyes, or have complete use of your young body."

The doctors had not told me that yet, but I could tell from the vampire’s eyes that it was true. I nodded and waited, my heart racing like the winds of time.

He nodded. “I will sup on you, and you will taste my blood in return. Nothing more. It is not complicated, my friend. I will give you life eternal and a body young and agile, and then you will be free to see your wife. You can raise her up, if you like. It’s been done. One drink, and she will live again.”

Shannon. He offered me my Shannon. I needed to hear no more. I nodded my head and bared my neck. “Drink me,” I told him. “Take all you want for I don’t care to live without her.”

He bent over me, but his lips did not yet make contact. “You will drink of me and join us then?” he asked.

I nodded eagerly. “Yes. I would do anything to have my wife back. Anything.”

So he bit, and the pain of it was nothing to me who’d suffered day and night from the horror of my existence without my love. I endured his touch and the draining of my essence; my only thought was of Shannon.

After he was sated, the vampire cut his own wrist, and I sucked as he ordered. The taste burned my mouth, but a sudden need inside me drove me on. Though fire cursed every organ inside me, I couldn’t stop. I drank as much as he allowed. Then he pushed me away and pulled a hospital bag full of blood from his pocket.

“Drink this, my friend, and welcome. Tomorrow you will join us.” He handed me a slip of paper, but I didn’t take it. I was too busy gorging on the warmth of the delicious blood.

“I’ll put the address in your jacket, then,” he chuckled. “You will find it when you need it. Remember, when you go out, avoid the light.”

It was only when I’d emptied the bag that I noticed he was gone. I’d never even bothered to ask his name.

I shoved the drained plastic sack into the drawer of my nightstand, then slept contented throughout the next day. I’m sure I worried the nurses, but at one point I heard one mention that my vital signs were good, so they left me alone even though I ate nothing and slept the sleep of the dead.

But as the sun slipped down into the evening’s twilight, I disconnected myself from their machines and unplugged the alarms. I threw away the eye patch and the bandages secured with tape across my body. I had no saw to cut away my unnecessary cast. My hands, stronger than ever before, burst it apart. Then I dressed and slipped out, down the stairs.

Once I entered the street, I remembered what the orderly had told me. I pulled out the paper and read the address. Then I nodded. I would join them shortly, but first I had business elsewhere.

I had no car. I stopped at a rental place, but when I looked in my wallet, I discovered that all my credit cards were gone. So was my cash. I walked to the hardware store. I still had money in my wallet in the secret compartment the hospital hadn’t found. It was that hundred I used to purchase a shovel. The cashier handed me my change. I licked my lips. He looked tasty, but I had no time for that.

I rushed off into the night, bound for the cemetery. A couple of hoodlums stopped me on the way. One had a knife. He cut me on the cheek when I bit him. The other one ran off. I drained the struggling body and left it lying limply on the sidewalk.

Feeling stuffed, but surging with energy, I sneaked into the newer area of graves. I could have cried when I saw her headstone: Beloved wife of Brad J. Shimpers. Beloved. I sat down on the patch of grass that was just starting to grow, and again I mourned.

An owl hooted me into the realization I had work to do. I threw my back into a deep thrust, and then I shoveled and shoveled and shoveled. Her casket was down at least six feet. My back ached when I finally tapped the wood of her casket.

I paused to wipe the sweat off my face and looked up. The moon was cresting the clouds. The sky would soon be lightening. Would I make it? I had to. I pitched myself at a higher rate. My hands blistered and became so sore I could barely lift the shovel. How could the dirt have turned hard so fast? I wondered, but I dug on.

“Need some help?”

I turned and almost fell. Thirteen dark-hooded strangers had assembled. I raised my shovel, thinking that I must fight them. One of them stepped forward.

“Hold it,” he said. “I’m Jacques, the one who turned you. Remember?”

I lowered my shovel and attempted to get a glimpse of his face.

He threw back his hood, and said, “Come. We are your brothers. Let us help you.”

He reached out with his hand and pulled me out of my hole. Then the others lowered the shovels they’d brought and began to dig.

“Have you eaten, yet?” Jacques asked, pulling my attention back to him.

“Yes, a mugger,” I told him. Then I grinned. “He was delicious.”

Jacques laughed. “I’m proud of you. Well done.”

We watched in silence for a moment as the others dug. Then Jacques spoke. “You will have to ask your wife, you know. You cannot just bite her.”

I turned to view my new friend better. The moon had slid almost entirely behind the clouds. Jacques’s face was lit by strange streaks of light; shadow blotted out the rest.

“How can I ask her? She's dead.”

He smiled. “The dead can always talk to us, for we are dead, too, my friend -- just as dead as those buried in decaying coffins under piles of earth and rock.”

“My wife will recognize me, then? She will see that I am her husband?”

When Jacques nodded, I sighed my relief. I laughed. For the first time since the accident I felt light-hearted and full of joy.

“Then she will agree," I said. "We were very much in love. She will come with me.”

The others made simple work of what would have taken me hours. They cleared out the dirt, opened the casket, and stepped back so I could view what was left of my wife.

She was not pretty. Her hair, once her glory, with its flowing tresses waist long in cinnamons and golds was now only the remnant of ashes. Her face was in parts naked to the bone. But I knew it was Shannon. I saw her hand, badly scarred by flames, but still wearing the ring of our love.

I went to her and knelt at her side. “Shannon, my love, my sweet darling, hear me. I have the answer to our prayers. I can make you whole again. I can bring you back. Tell me that’s okay with you, Shannon. Speak to me.”

I cannot say that her eyes opened, for they were only empty orbs, having melted away in the inferno of the wreck, but she lifted up her head slightly and turned to me. “Oh, my poor darling,” she said. “What have you done?”

She turned her head from me to view the others. I think she shuddered, but her body barely moved.

“I would have waited forever for you,” she said. “I would have stayed by your side and loved you. But I am now in heaven, and you have turned your face from God.”

Perhaps I imagined it, but I think a tear slid down the remaining part of her nose.

“That doesn’t matter, Shannon," I said. I wanted to take her hand, but I was afraid it would fall apart. The fire had destroyed her. It had robbed her of her beauty.

Still, she was my Shannon, my love. I reached out and touched one finger to her cheekbone.

"Shannon. Listen to me. God took you from me. He betrayed us first.”

Another tear slid to pool in the open space of her cheekbone. “No, my love," she said and for a moment I thought I saw her, the way she used to look, her warm eyes tear-filled with love.

"That isn't so. God guided me to Heaven. He stood at my side. He comforted my aching body. He led me to the angels’ sides.”

I sighed and wiped at my face, but I had no tears. My eyes burned, yet I had no tears. How was that possible? I shook my head and pushed the thought aside.

“But our love, Shannon. I did this for our love, so we can live again. Together.”

The temporary image faded. Once more I saw what the accident had done to her. I closed my eyes and opened my mouth to plead with her.

“No. I’m sorry, Brad. I once loved you with all my heart, but I cannot love you now. The walking dead have betrayed all that’s good. They kill to live; no vampire has ever found his way back to God.”

I couldn't accept that. I seized her in my arms. I held her close. I kissed what was left of the good side of her face.

“Are you saying you won’t come back to me?” I cried out, holding her so close I heard a brittle bone crack. But she didn't feel it. Her body sagged. There was no life inside it then, only the spirit of her soul.

“I am in heaven now, Brad,” a whisper came. “I am with God. I will pray for you always, but, no, I cannot come back to you. I shall not speak to you again. I must not, for you have chosen the dark, and I have risen to the light.”

I howled into the darkness. Then I wept in tearless grief. “Shannon, you can’t mean this. I love you. Shannon!”

But my wife was gone. I held only her abused body, her charred, frail, lifeless body.

“Brad, I’m sorry . . . but you must come away now,” Jacques ordered, placing his hand on my shoulder. “The hour grows late. Morning approaches.”

I shrugged. I attempted to push his hand away. “No. I can’t leave her. I can’t,” I sobbed.

One of the others tore my wife from my grasp. Three of his friends wrestled me up out of the grave. When I looked back, they were filling up the tomb. I collapsed on the damp ground and mourned again for Shannon -- and for myself.

It was Jacques who carried me away from that site. He brought me to the house that he’d told me about. He lowered me into my new day’s resting place, not a casket, but the darkness inside the depths of a cellar. There we all stretched out in our dormitory-like room and closed our eyes to the light of day.

But just as the darkness of sleep overtook me, I recalled what Shannon had said: “Never has a vampire found his way back to God.”

It was my last thought that night, but it was also my first conscious thought when I awoke. I shall find a way, I vowed silently.

I climbed the dark stairs into the lighted house we shared, and Jacques took me under his wing, leading me about so he could introduce me to everyone. I repeated the names as each person spoke, but all I could think of was Shannon, her refusal, and the words she’d said.

Jacques seemed to want my friendship. He was a handsome lad in his late twenties. I took to him right off, not blaming him for what he’d done to me. I knew he’d tried to help; yet, I knew I couldn’t live without my Shannon.

I left Jacques to his nightly prowl. I suppose he was searching for something more than food. There was an emptiness in all of us. I’d felt it as I shook hands and repeated names. The vampire’s lack of soul evidently brought a barren and purposeless existence.

This realization struck me as I left that first day. It was a slap in the face. It was a cruel second thrust. I had no money, no function, no goals, no chance of happiness.

As if by instinct, I went where the desperate go. I searched for a church. Arriving at the first one I came to, I climbed the stairs, but my body became more and more fatigued as I walked higher. Each step took more out of me, until I could barely lift up a leg. Yet, I persisted. Finally I reached the top, but I was panting so hard then, I collapsed, unable to go on.

I rested there for many minutes before I had the energy to stand. Then I attempted to open the door, but it would not unfasten. In fact, the touch of my hand on the door’s frame stung me. Nor could I push the door with my leg or body -- it was as if the door were locked against me.

I waited for an unsuspecting person, one dashing in for confession or for prayers, but when I attempted to follow each of them, my legs would not carry me beyond the threshold. I realized then that I was doomed. It was true; I could no longer enter God’s house.

I sat down at the top of the steps, bent over, and held my face in my hands. “Shannon,” I cried, “Shannon, please help me.” But there was no response. As she’d told me at the graveyard, she would not speak to me again.

I remained at the top of those stairs all night. One of my roommates saw me and tugged me back down. I was too weak to resist him. When he strong-armed me away, I meekly followed.

“He’s going through withdrawal pains,” Lance told Jacques when we returned to the house. “I had to pry him away from the church steps. He’s still feisty, but he didn’t eat, and because of that he's growing weak already.” So saying, Lance flung me down into a soft, padded armchair and strode away.

Jacques stood over me, shaking his head sadly. “There’s no going back, Brad. You're a vampire. You must accept it.”

I sighed, but I didn’t argue. At his bidding, we crept down into the darkness, and he again showed me my bed. I soon closed my eyes and slept the dreamless sleep of the soulless ones.

But the next night, I rose. Again I refused to go with Jacques. “I must go back to the church,” I said. “I must find forgiveness.”

Night after night, that same scene repeated. I would not eat, and each time Jacques walked me home, he shook his head in sad-eyed disappointment and lectured me about acceptance.

Then one night, the chance I’d been waiting for occurred. A priest came down the stairs. “Why do you sit here night after night?” he asked me, and I gladly poured forth my story.

For many nights I spoke to Father Paul as he sat beside me and counseled me. We prayed together. He offered me blessings. The holy water he touched me with always stung, but I was grateful. I would endure any pain for my Shannon.

I told this to the priest the last night, and he blinked and stared at me with the same sadness I’d seen in Jacques' eyes. “That is the problem, young man. You do this for your wife, not for your soul, not for God .”

The light came into me at that moment, and I finally saw the error of my ways. I threw myself down on my hands and knees and said, “Father, forgive me, for I have sinned.”

After that, I was too weak to rise up. Not eating or drinking had caused my body to begin to decay. I am sure the smell of me turned the Father’s stomach, but he didn't let on. He threw his arm around me and ordered me to accompany him inside. I trembled. I felt ill with fear, yet I walked at his side, hopeful, still mumbling prayers that God would accept me and forgive me for my fall from grace.

When I crossed the threshold, I fell to the floor and kissed the holy site of God. That was my last Earthly memory.

Shannon told me later that my body had disintegrated at the feet of the kindly Father Paul. I didn't remember. I only knew that when I opened my eyes, I saw the light, and I rose and climbed into the glory of it. Then when I reached the top, I bowed, and He touched me, forgiving me for my sins.

There were some who scorned my arrival, although it was unchristian and caused their wings to dull. Yet, those angels were not perfect beings like the true celestials -- the seraphims and the cherubims.

The true angels, all with brighter wings and bigger halos, welcomed me with smiles and beatitudes. They accepted instantly that I was redeemed in the eyes of God.

Yet Shannon, my angel, restored once again to her former beauty, was the only one whose opinion mattered, and she reached out her hand to me from the very first. She and God.

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