Part 2 of Midnight Garden Novel

 Part 2 

The next day I went back to visit with Desdemona, to return the journal to her and to get more of her story. How long had this thing been terrorizing her?  What made her decide to contact me?  What did she think this thing was? Did she do anything to “invite” this thing into her life?  

We met at the same cafe in the French quarter and discussed things over coffee and beignets.  

Her story 

Whispers between the binary code. The spaces between the sequences of zeros and ones.  

"Come to me.."

I sat in front of the fluorescent light of my computer, searching through the ocean of information.  Looking for some tiny shred of the truth.  

It began for me with a strange little fiction novel some obscure new author wrote.  A strange tale a mythical monster had to tell.  Vampires.  Blood sucking demons of night.  Something in my mind snapped suddenly.  I almost physically heard the auditory "crack" of the glass as it began to shatter.  It exploded.  

What if the monsters were real?  

They seemed real enough on the printed page and now had found a more tangible existence in that space between the zeros and ones and my mind.  I sat reading the words someone wrote on a screen no doubt similar to my own.  They were far away from me.  In another part of the world.  Could have been France or China.  I used to attempt digging straight to China when I was a child.  They could be in America too.  

I went onto Google to search for Vampires.  Dozens of links came up. Definitions of what this mythical creature was.  Tales from all parts of the world.  Ancient stories from long ago Egypt of spirits.  Modern day vampire cults.  Religious orders.  Sexual deviants. Blood fetishes.  The "Lifestylers'' goths.  Music. More fiction.  Then a link to a message board to communicate and interact with your favorite vampires.  I joined.  

And then the glass exploded.  

Serendipity.  I don't know why I chose that as a user name.  "Hello my name is Serendipity…" 

Shortly after joining, the dreams started.  

"Come to me.." 

Over the course of 2 years I made many friends there. Folks just like me who joined the little forum.  Some who believed in vampires, some who did not.  Some very young adults, some teenagers, some older adults.  It spanned across demographics these motley crue of innocent people.  

It's all fun and games until someone loses their mind.  

We exchanged snap shots of our lives posting pictures of some of our moments or writing streams of poetry.  Exchanging opinions and ideas.  Having meaningful and pleasant conversations.  Bonding together.  

The monsters were well fed, feeding nightly on the feast of conversations on the screen.  Sometimes adding their own thoughts to our conversations or starting one of their own.  Offering connection with those of us who were seeking it from them.  Some of us, including myself, wanted the monsters to be real.  So they became real.  

Voltaire.  He claimed to be one of the vampires in that strange little fiction I read 2 years ago.  A recommendation of a friend had made mention of the author to me one day over pancakes at this mom and pop diner somewhere in a rural city of the East coast.  I was on vacation in Maine New Hampshire and we were heading to Cape Cod.  The book I found in a little shop in Salem Mass.  All about this man imprisoned in the Bastille turned Vampire named Voltaire.  The same Voltaire featured in the journal you have now in your hands.  The journal left on my doorstep nights ago.  I assume one of the admin of the website you have now seen made it up and dropped it on my doorstep.  Probably to scare me.  

It was an odd story.  

I asked Desdemona if the website he visited was still in operation and if she had the link to it still.  He told me she was still a member but had not been very active on it anymore not since all these strange occurrences started happening to her.  She gave me the URL and when I left her that afternoon to go back to my hotel I went online and joined the website.  I signed on as "Renfield" which I thought was funny considering the situation I was in.  Desperately seeking a vampire encounter.  I followed the white rabbit deep into the rabbit hole.  Run rabbit run.  I suddenly had a craving for rabbit stew.  Just my luck the hotel next to the lobby of the hotel had a restaurant and rabbit stew was on the menu.  I left my room to go get a nice bowl of hot stew.  

The restaurant or rather sports pub dedicated to the local football team the Saints boasted of having 10 craft beers on tap.  I ordered a  bottle of Dixie beer and ordered my food, rabbit stew to start and a burger.  I was suddenly very hungry.  The food was indeed delicious.  I quickly finished a second Dixie and decided to tour the area and take in some of the French Quarter. 

Mid July in the French Quarter is hot. The humid sticky heat wraps around you like a lover might. Squeezing tight around your lungs. It's hard to breathe. You should stay hydrated, drink lots, and if at all possible go somewhere with AC and stay there.  This evening however it was not as humid, it was bearable and so I decided to explore the city.  I headed to Jackson Square, the streets this time of year were not overly crowded with drunk tourists and so it was easy to get around.  I walked down Royal to the Square. St Louis Cathedral Catholic Church at the center of the French Quarter.  Tarot readers, palm readers, vampire tours, mecca for the spiritual, the drunk tourists, the ghosts, and any other supernatural thing looking for attention.  Ghostly pirates in the alleyway next to the church. Pirates Alley which is watched over by "touchdown Jesus".  Oh the things Jesus has seen in the wee hours of the morning past midnight as drunken tourists stumble through the streets, taking a little detour through pirates Alley, perhaps stopping at the little pirate bar for an absinthe or 2 then head back to the bars on Bourbon Street.  It's all fun and games, with Jesus watching.  

Jesus is watching you.  Suddenly I felt as if I were being watched as I walked back to my hotel.  Followed.  Stalked. No one but drunken tourists were around and they were too full of drink to even pay me any attention let alone follow me.  Still I couldn't shake the feeling.

I hurried back to the hotel, and up to my room.  I went online on my little laptop to check out the vampire site I had just joined.  There was a message from one of the Admin, Voltaire in fact.  The message read as follows: 

“ Are you enjoying New Orleans Monsieur?  I do hope you are.  Sorry to have startled you last night.  You see you caught me in a compromising position here, I was out hunting last night when I saw you at Seren-Desdemona’s-Yes I know she contacted you and I know you have or had my Journal.  Did you read it?  Was it interesting?  I have to say I had intended it for Desdemona only but I am intrigued now by you.  I think soon we will meet in person and I can give you my side of the story. Welcome to the forum Monsieur, we will talk soon, perhaps over coffee and beignets although I must admit that I no longer partake of any human food still I would enjoy watching you savor these things and speaking with you..”  

What an odd little message.  I replied back that I would enjoy meeting him, to name the date and time and I would be there.  Perhaps we could meet at Cafe Du Monde. It seemed a public enough place to meet a stranger, especially one claiming to be a monster.  I awaited a response.  

Nothing came right away.  I showed the message Voltaire sent me the next day, she told me to not meet him.  Said he was dangerous, very manipulative, and had already nearly harmed others who came before to meet him.  It always ended badly with them getting banned from the forum shortly after coming to New Orleans.  He would never meet them face to face, just follow them at a distance and then say things to them in DMs like what they wore out, or where he had seen them ect.  He sent one member roses to her hotel room with a nice little handwritten note.  Never had any physical contact with any of them, just played games with them from afar, until he got bored and banned them.  I considered everything Desdemona told me but I still had to meet this guy and expose him to put an end to this insanity.  If he were just some kid in his parent’s basement playing a stupid game with people.  I was going to expose it.  Little did I know what I was about to get myself into.  

Two days passed and I finally got a reply from Voltaire. He will meet me tonight at the Cafe Du Monde at Midnight.  

I sat at the partly outdoor cafe, in one of the many seats that were outside in the courtyard of the place.  Usually during the day it is fully packed with people sipping coffee and eating pastries that are covered in powdered sugar.  A diabetic nightmare.  At midnight though there were plenty of available empty seats.  I ordered a cafe au lait, skipped the beignets I didn’t feel like dying today.  I sat close to the street so Voltaire could find me and waited.  

Minutes past, I sat and watched the odd person stumble by, no doubt had been bar hopping all week by the looks of him.  “ laissez bon temps rouler'' let the good times roll-The tourists at least for the most part take that quite literally.  Some will spend weeks in drunken stupors wandering Bourbon street, some never make it back home.  Man with an eye patch taking a leak-'' Oh sorry man, didn’t see you there-” he zips up his pants.  “ I am on vacation, my daughter sent me on vacation..I’m 51 yrs old today or Yesterday-Hey man what day is it? Jesus I gotta get back to drinking my daughter-Wanna?” He was very drunk.  “ No thanks man but you enjoy it.” I smiled at him.  Poor old bastard.  He moved on.  

Someone tapped my left shoulder, I turned to see who it was-No one there-I turned back to my coffee and there sat in front of me as if materializing out of  thin air-But that’s impossible-A tall, golden haired, I would say mid 20s young man, dressed in leather, hair spiked like a young “Billy Idol” dressed in biker leather pants, Jacket, t-shirt all black.   Leather boots on his feet.  He grinned at me and stretched out his hand for me to shake it.  Eyes a sparkling blue deep like the ocean.  He kept grinning.  My voice came out shaky “ Voltaire I assume?”  He nodded, still grinning, holding out his hand.  I hesitantly took his hand and shook it.  “So you’re real-Not some kid living in his parents basement?”  “ Living in my parents basement?” 

 “ Yeah man, some nerdy kid playing computer games?”  I responded.  Still in awe and a little afraid.  

“ Your fear of me is  not wrong, and could maybe save you-Don’t try to hide it from me. I can see it, I can feel it, I can smell it-It smells like a bitter gulp of blood.  Not my preference but-Blood is blood so-Yes I am Voltaire.”  

“ Hmph Billy Idol-I once did the 70s punk thing yes.  I much prefer Sting though.”  

He kept this pleasant grin as he spoke.  It was both terrifying and disarming at the same time.  

“ I must say this hair is hard to keep up every night though, I don’t usually clip it this short, It is actually just below my shoulders. How it was when I ‘died’”  

“Died? How long have you been ‘dead’?  If you are dead, who am I talking to?  Man, I have never had in all my years investigating these things had such a solid apparition appear before me.  A glimpse of something flashing by the corner of my eyes yeah all the time but this solid? Never.  How are you doing this?”  

Voltaire sighed almost a sad somewhat frustrated sigh “ Hm.  How do I explain?  I am not a ghost.  Not one of your common spooks that haunt old mansions in New Hampshire or the old flats in the French Quarter here.  New Orleans I admit is not exaggerating in the least about their ghost infestation.  But no I am not a ghost.  I did die, yes. As you read in my journal, I am a vampire, for lack of better term a re animated corpse although I really don’t feel like a corpse most nights.  I am alive, full of vigor.  Not a zombie either.  I have self awareness still, a soul most assuredly, I do not know the science behind how this-” he gestured over his body “ all operates I walk, I talk, I think, I feel..On the surface I suppose you could say I am still human except I have lived since before the French Revolution I am over 100yrs old well over but do not look a day over 25.  I do not know how this happened. The mechanics of it are lost on me.  I am not a biologist.  Perhaps one night I will walk into a science lab and have some scientist study me before I drink him up.” He laughed.  “ I am here and have been here a good long time.  I feed off humans nightly, drinking up their very souls in the blood. I am a monster as much as I am human.  Duality.”  He stopped looking at me as if considering something and shook his head.  “ I want to tell you my story, I want you to publish it.  I  need you so I will not kill you, not yet”.  

I looked at him in awe and fear, startled by his presence. Part of me wanted to get up and run, but another part of me was too curious to hear his story.  “ That’s good to know.  So you want to tell me your story and write it in a book, publish it and then what?  You kill me?  I don’t know man, I mean on the one hand sure I could probably make a killing off your story, Probably make enough to retire on, live the rest of my days sipping margaritas in Margaritaville.  But none of that matters if I am dead now does it?  Besides, wouldn’t such a revelation to the world be dangerous for you? I mean people find out there really are vampires among them and it’s going to cause a ‘witch hunt’.  You’ll get every Buffy the vampire slayer  wanna be kid out hunting vampires.  So IF I agree to tell your story you have to agree to not kill me afterwards.  I don’t want any money. I really don’t care about that, but you have to let me live.  Deal?”  

He looked at me considering what I had said.  “ Hm very well, what is time to one such as me?  Alright. Deal.  I will allow you to keep your life if you tell my story.”  

“ Awesome, So do we spit and shake on it then?”  

Voltaire laughed.  “ A handshake will suffice no need to swap spit”  

“ So when and where do you want to do this?” I asked him.  

“ Hmmmm, You have a podcast studio, yes?  In Montreal Canada?” He asked.  

“ How-Nevermind-Yes I do.” Bastard read my thoughts. I knew that much.  

“ Excellent, then we can arrange to start this next week, I will meet you at your Montreal studio and give you my story, answer any questions you might have for me, we will do a podcast together, yes?”  

“ Alright then, come to the studio Next week on Friday and we’ll do this.”  I said.  

We shook hands, His cold was a stark contrast to my sweaty warm palms.  We parted with an agreement to meet next week for an interview.  

Voltaire

After the little meeting I had with Christian Knight I was ready to eat a football team.  

Walking alone in the Treme I soon found my breakfast.  

I spotted this deliciously tender morsel in a dark alley in the Treme.  He had just paid this heroin addict to suck him off.  She was sickeningly thin with bottle red hair and pale skin.  I followed them both for a few blocks to the alley falling in love with the strange awkward couple they made.  Him stumbling from too much drink, her shaking and desperate for her  next “fix”.  

“C’mon let's do it here, 50.00 I’ll give you 50.”  He reached into his pocket and threw the bills at her feet.  She bent down to collect them.  He grabbed her head then told her to “ get to it”.  She unzipped his pants.  Was he wearing a suit? Business man? He grabbed her hair and forced himself into her mouth.  I could hear her gagged.  I appeared before him then.  “ What the Hell man?! You a cop? Aww Shit! You’re a cop. Get up Bitch!”  

“I’m not a cop.” I said in a menacing voice.  

I reached for him pushing the girl out of the way.  ‘ Run!”  I said to her,  

I pulled him to me and tore into his throat.  Ah Blood.  Hot pumping blood.  His heart beat against my own.  Thundering the life from him and into me.  

Blood is life.  

He was dead.  I took his corpse and dumped it in the Mississippi.  The Gators would take care of the evidence.  Poor bastard’s family would never know how he died.  

I walked back to my flat in the French Quarter. I often walk as a mortal would, enjoying the southern air and the lively sounds of the French Quarter.