Zomby Woof Or Vampire Dreams and Stranger Things By: Stephanie A. Buday (s0162763@cc.ysu.edu) SPOILER WARNING for QotD... Not really, but sort of. You be the judge. This is a work of amature fiction and is not intended to infringe on the rights of Anne Rice or Random House or Knopf (or who ever it is that owns the rights). So try to control yourselves and don't sell it or anything! ;) Personal Disclaimer: To ward off e-mail about my spelling and grammar... You see, I take a different view then most when it comes to that kind of stuff. A writting style, should bear the stamp of the author. My chosen form is "Post neo-classical deconstructive brutalism". Remember, it's not a typo, it's and art form! Main characters: Daniel, Armand Dedication: To Lisa Hall (aka Lady Black Death) - Who showed me a new perspective (even if I don't agree with it ;)) Torch -Who I tortured with this spec ;) Leah Troxell - Who knocked me off the merry-go-round Somewhere along the line, I know the story is here... oh wait, here it is... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sleep takes off the costume of circumstance, arms us with terrible freedom, so that every will rushes to a deed. --Ralph Waldo Emerson I am because We are. --African Proverb We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. --T.S. Eliot, "Four Quartets" Zomby Woof Or Vampire Dreams and Stranger Things By: Stephanie A. Buday "I was a Zomby for you, little lady..." He said kneeling over her, kissing her cold cheek. He stood up and walked over to the door, surveying the room before he left. "Not a bad lay for a quiet earth mother type." he murmured to himself. The place looked as though it had been ransacked. When repressed people final cut lose, the results could sometimes be barbarically pleasant in this tiresome age. He blew the dead woman a kiss and sprinted out the door almost giddy with renewed purpose. There was no regret. She was dead long before she met him, he brought that spark back to her, if only for a moment before gobbling it up for himself. She wouldn't know what to do with it anyway... She wouldn't fit in if she did. He was merciful in taking her. Euthanasia. He danced down the hall of the apartment complex singing with all the power his vampire lungs would allow, "I am the Zomby Woof, I'm that creature all the ladies been talking about!" He was, indeed, very famous in this part of New Miami, though no one alive had ever _really_ seen him. He took an ad out in the local net accesser. After three hundred years, he knew how to get around the government censors, making sure the ad was never more then a flash across the view screen (complimentary to each citizen in the form of a government issued head set). The ad read: Tired of your government induced mandatory 100 year life span of quixotic utopian bliss? Longing for the release that death will bring? Then go out with a BANG, not a whimper! Contact the Zomby Woof! Death has never been so fun! Zomby Woof - He puts the "eat" back in Death! It was officially condemned by a frustrated magistrate, who could not figure out who this Zomby Woof was, or how he had managed to by-pass the net censors. The people were told not to respond to the ad and to call the authorities immediately if they came into contact with him. But he was a favorite among young woman ages 18-25, who seemed to always find his luring ads that promised an end to the monotony, and managed to contact him by placing a ZW in an obvious place for him to find when he made his nightly walks. He was by no means discrete about what he and his clients did either. He left their unclad bloodless corpses in their homes to be discovered. Usually, there was a poem attached to them. The last one read: A quiet li'l' earth mother, She never had a man, so she called up ole Zomby and he threw her in a pan. "She told me 'Don't be gentle, My life has been a bore.' So I zippered down her britches and I made her spirit soar!" She died well. 'Earth mother' was the term used for women who at an early age, dedicated themselves to the preservation of the earth. As a protest to over population, and hence the endangerment of the fragile ecosystem, these women remained virgins as a symbol of their dedication and marriage to the earth. They were a high percentage of Zomby Woof's cliental. No one ever reported him even though he could usually be heard dancing and singing in the halls or streets of his latest clients. No one cared, so long as he stuck to those who had called him. Which he did. They kept themselves locked up in their homes and hooked up to their virtual worlds where they would sit back and bliss out. Occasionally, they might come across one of his ads. Years ago, he had let the people come to him and had taken them in the solitude and comfort of his arms to die the good death. The way his maker had taught him. A reverent death for a decadent time. But times had changed, he had to adapt. Now, it was a decadent death for a wearisome time. This utopic shadow that had befallen the earth... A dark age, as static and sterile as the medieval period ever was. These humans had lost interest in anything which required a little life, as they yielded to their government issued head sets. He often had to tell himself it was the perfect time for him. Never in the history of his life, was it so easy to kill without remorse! These people wanted it! They *begged* for it! They answered his ads! And if he could put the little life spark back into them, then he had done _two_ good deeds for the night. And the kill was so much more sublime when he looked into their eyes and saw someone staring back. It was a rare delicacy for his kind, who's staple had become the dead glaze of the electronic-laden twenty-third century humans. He danced his way into the street and paraded to the town square where a great fountain was erected over a hundred years ago. The new "Fountain of Youth" for the one that was destroyed with most of the Florida pan handle in the great earthquake of 2183. "My fountain!" he shouted jumping into the water, throwing his head back laughing, as the spray of water splashed him in the face. He leapt to the top shelf and stood next to the statue of Ponce De Leon. He hooked his arm around the head of the statue and called out to the desolation of the square, "Dead things of the world unite!" He laughed again at the sound of his voice echoing back. "Daniel!" For the first time in nearly three hundred years, he heard the sound of his own name being called. He looked to the base of the fountain, where stood the lone figure of a young boy. "Daniel, come down from there." Ah, it was still there, that accent of agitation when Daniel had upset him. How he loved the way this one said his name. Three hundred years and it was still beautiful. And the hair... He had left it long and flowing in the wind. It was out of style, but then who would ever know? "Daniel!" "Armand! I'm so glad you came! Come up here and dance with me! Don't worry about Ponce, he's just a friend." Daniel shouted down to him, laughing as he finished the words. "Daniel, please! Come down!" This time the words were laced more in sorrow then in irritation. "We need to talk, you're in danger!" "Ha!" Daniel bellowed, "Three hundred years I waited for you and you bring up something as insipid as my safety. You want to save me now? Spare the lecture, I'm sure to die from the tedium. Throw off your shell Master Vampire! Shuffle it off and come dance with me!" "Damn it Daniel! It always has to be difficult with you!" He leapt to the level of the fountain right below Daniel. "I am nothing," Daniel said nonchalantly, "if not consistent." "You're mad." Armand corrected. "As mad as the night that I made you." "And what's wrong with that?" Daniel challenged. "The *whole world* is mad!" He laughed again. "We adapt to the world, or we die. You know that... you *taught* me that." He swooped down, kissed the forehead of his maker, and swung back up, pivoting around the statue. "And I thank you for it!" Armand sighed looking sadly at his child, whom he feared was now jaded by time and experience. "This is why I was afraid for you... Why I waited so long to grant your wish. Do you see why I resisted for so long? Do you understand now? Time which at first seems our friend, becomes the enemy before long--" "Stop it, Armand!" Daniel yelled over the rush of the water. "No more lessons! The one thing I never missed, Your self- indulgent lessons! Go get a recording of yourself and play it, it would save on air." "Daniel--" "I am *not* tired of life. Leave your analysis to someone who cares! I tell you Armand, *I* am alive! Look at this town, take a good look. We are not the dead things, *they* are!" He spun in place with his hands out stretched, "ZOOOOOMBIES!" "Daniel," Armand said in a softer, more loving tone. "the others, they will not let this continue. Not for much longer. You draw too much attention to yourself. You kill recklessly--" "The mortals?" Daniel laughed. "They think I'm some type of perverted serial killing Robinhood. And the vampires... is it my fault if they're too cowardice to sate their own hunger, while I nightly have my fill?" "No Daniel," Armand said, moving closer to take his hand. "This is madness, even *you* have enough sense to know that. You wanted me to come. You wanted me to stop you. You have never been so visible as now. You did this to draw me to you, didn't you?" "No!" Daniel spat, flinging Armand's arm away from him. "Don't flatter yourself, you would have come anyway. Regardless of my actions, you would have returned. I do this because *I* enjoy it! Because *they* enjoy it! Don't think it's not the thrill of the life time for these otherwise lethargic people. It's the most excitement they'll ever get." He jumped to the pool beneath and waded to the ledge of the fountain, sitting himself upon it. He looked up, Armand was beside him and for the most part, unwet. "It hurts you to watch them." Armand stated. "I told you to stop analyzing" Daniel murmured irritated at Armand's incessant refusal to accept his happiness. "But it does. You can't stand watching their spirit die. It hurts you every time you look at them, I can see it in your eyes." Armand again placed his hand over Daniel's, who seemed to either not to notice it, or to tolerate it. "It's merely one of their cycles, it will pass. Why did you come?" Daniel sighed. "You called for me." He simply replied. "Yes Armand, I called for you... Three hundred years ago." He pulled his foot up on the ledge and took his shoe off, emptying the water that filled it, then put it back on his foot. "You're late." He said looking down and concentrating on tying his shoe "Yes, I know. I am sorry, please forgive me." Daniel shook his head and began laughing again. "You say that as if it were a diner party you missed." He pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. "The strange thing is, I find it rather comforting." "Oh?" Armand said arching an eyebrow. "Yes. It's just how you would say it. It some how wouldn't be you if you said something else. I find myself taking comfort in what is reliable." "Are you calling me predictable?" Armand grimaced in mock resent. "I'm calling you an eternal pain in the ass." Daniel retorted. "Why did you come?" "Are we back to that already? You usually put up more of a runaround." Armand chided. "That was the 'Daniel' of yesteryear. Check out my ads, you'll find I'm much more direct now." He rubbed his chin for a moment and muttered, "Come to think of it, your the one with the runaround technique, not me..." "You're acting like goddamn lunatic, Daniel. Whatever possessed you to do such a thing?!" "Do what?" Daniel asked as if he really hadn't a clue. "You know what I'm talking about," Armand said sternly. "those ads." "Why not do it? Why do anything? Why do nothing? Ask me why I got up on the right side of the bed instead of the left. Does it even matter in the end? I did it. I might just keep doing it. You should join me, I could start a franchise." "I've come to take you back with me, Daniel." "So now you want me back? Do you think you really want me?" Daniel said in a matter-of-fact tone. "Of course I do!" Armand sounded wounded at the accusation. "Why would you think I didn't? I did not leave because I did not want you, I left because I *love* you! I loved you too much to hold on! You never have understood my actions, but I tell you I have always acted out of love for you." Daniel smiled weakly and rested his head on his knees. "If I have not understood you, it is because you are so difficult to understand. Sometimes, it makes me dizzy to listen to your words, so I only listen to the sound your voice makes. It's like music at times." Daniel straightened himself and cocked his head to the side "When do we leave?" Armand shook his head a bit skeptical of the sincerity "I some how didn't expect you to consent this early." "Would you rather I argued? I can if you would like me to, I thought I'd skip a few steps and save us all some time. "Daniel--" "No, really. Why go twenty-one rounds when the out come has already been determined? But then, I've always loved the tango. And there are so few tangoers these days... Please," he jumped off the ledge and landed on the soft grass below and beckoned for Armand to join him. "come dance with me. I promise I won't laugh, at least not much." He paused, staring back at the amazed gaze of Armand. "And never at you. You'll have to forgive me, it's just that I still find it all so very funny. For over three hundred years, it's been like a dream and I fear I'm about to be awakened. Dance with me now before we all disappear." He lifted his hand and pointed to the stars. "Hoc est corpus, into the ethereal and returns a butterfly's dream... But I must go, I'm very late." He said looking at the antique digital watch on his wrist. It took Armand a moment to adjust to the precipitous deviation in Daniel's utterance before coming to the realization that he meant to leave. "Wait! Daniel, you're leaving now?" "I have clients waiting." He threw his hands up in the air and let them fall lifelessly by his side, as if it were all out of his control. "Please, be reasonable!" Armand pleaded "What? You thought I would give up my job because you dropped by for a visit?" "You said you would come back with me." "I was humoring you. Really Armand, you've been loitering around the punch bowl too long, try to keep up with the tempo of the dance." "Daniel!" "You like to say my name a lot, you must have *really* missed me." "You can't keep killing people like this!" Armand reprimanded, "So many, so close, so visibly! You have sex with them, the only drop of blood you leave behind a spec of virgin blood on a white sheet. That's not--" "Have sex?" Daniel interrupted, "Let's call it what it is Armand, I fuck them. Having sex is a little more difficult when you bear in mind my obvious constraints." "Dear god Daniel, you *have* gone insane!" "I have yet to deny or confirm that. Would you like to make a run with me and judge for yourself?" He asked. "WHAT?" Armand beseeched him incredulously. Daniel smiled warmly at him, taking his hand and leading the stunned Armand to the street "Is it possible you don't see it yet? It's the new evil Armand, it's the evil for this age; Give them what they want... and give it in excess." For the briefest second a wicked smile flashed across his face, before it became gentle and soft again. "I take no one by force, I honestly don't. I can tell who really wants me to come, and who thinks its only a game. It's really just a variation on what you do." "Daniel, I don't--" "Oh please don't be angry with me, Armand. We've lost so much time to waste more on anger!" Armand blinked, expecting Daniel to turn his anger on *him* instead of this... "How can you even care if I'm angry? After I left for--" "Three hundred years." "Well, yes." Armand answered. "It's only time." He shrugged "I told you, I knew you would be back. I just didn't know when... and so here you are." "Do you know why I left?" Armand asked. But Daniel just stared at him blankly, waiting for the answer. "I left because I wanted you to have your freedom. I didn't want you to feel indebted to me. Because I loved you too much... I loved you too much to see you caged. It's only now that I see the damage I have wrought upon you--" "No! Please, listen to what I say!" he cupped his hands around Armand's face and gently caressed it. Ah, it was so good to hold this angelic visage once again. He let go, his violet eyes still fixed on him. "I know you love me. You love me the best way you know how. You're time away, it did not damage me. I am whole. Look at me. I live. I fall. I get up again. Do you see?" He said taking a few paces back and forth. "I can even walk on my own." He paused for a moment to let Armand digest that bit and started again "I can live apart from you, because we are connected always. And when I was able to recognize that web that twines our lives together, I was able to go on without you by my side, because you could never really leave me. It's too late for that, we are extensions of the other. When one of us pulls on that web, the other feels it and reacts, there is no escape. To leave is only an illusion of time. "I am not afraid," Daniel continued, "to let myself unhinge from time to time. Just a little madness when the world becomes too real and threatens to pull me under her mantle. I lived in it once and rejected it, remember?" "Yes." Armand mouthed the words in a whisper. "And rather defiantly." Daniel smiled at the memory as well, "I journey out, as I always have. I gain new perspective. You tell me that I have lost my reason, but I haven't, and you know that. You're terrified because you feel that tug pulling you to join me. But you won't acknowledge it, you fear the chaos that I embrace. "Chaos is madness... Chaos is death. You're slipping from me, Daniel." "Chaos *is*!" Daniel exclaimed with his hands outstretched as if to encompass something too large to ever really get a grip on. "Everything else is what we ourselves create to keep our head above it. You cannot loose me, especially now that you are here. You came because you felt my tug and your eyes and ears were open. Did you know that I can feel your movements too? You try to be as quiet as you can, move as softly as possible without making waves. But did you know that I heard you? Do you know that there are nights that I can hear you breath? "My beloved Armand, you must know that you are my anchor. You are the one that calls me back home when I have gone out too far into the night. I can leave and have courage on my journey, because you hold the line that draws me safely back to you. "We are each others symmetry and equipoise, we are counterpart and consort. I was born out of you, and you remain because of me. I love you. Have I frightened you yet?" Armand stood motionless, taking in the sight of his child as if he had seen him for the very first time. Not as a mortal obsessed with immortality, but a being of infinite strength and power, capable of anything and everything. "Yes. You have." He said after a small space of time had passed. "I have always thought that is was you who have not understood me, and now I find that it is *I* who have not understood you. You're words come to me with a passion and love that I have never felt from you, even when we could hear each other in our minds. Three hundred years, and your fire burns brighter then the day you were made. And I do not understand how that is possible." Armand stopped, his eyes glazed with tears as he beheld the vision of his once fledgling with admiration and love. "You don't understand?" Daniel laughed. "Of course you don't understand, I've been completely incoherent since you got here!" Armand pulled Daniel to himself, wrapping him in his embrace, and Daniel felt a warm sensation pass through his entire body. It had been ages since he had been the one held, since he had been the object of someone else's desire and love. The illusion of time could feel all too real, and now he watched it dissolve as his lover took him back into his fold. Never had something so simple as a touch, sent him into such ecstasy and fulfillment. He felt as if they let go of each other, it would be the apocalypse of his soul. They fell over into the tall unkept grass of the square, each feverish in the need for the other. His lover kissed his lips tenderly, parting them, entering his mouth and rediscovering the familiar taste that had been absent for centuries. And when the probing stopped, Daniel open his eyes, alarmed and frightened that it had all been a dream and his lover was gone. But he saw the drawn pale face of his lover above him, sadly hushing Daniel and caressing the wetness from his face. "Oh, my beloved, have I hurt you? Why do you cry?" And Daniel had to think about what his lover had asked, because he did not know that he was weeping. And he smiled warmly even though the tears still came. He pulled his lovers head to his so that their lips again meet in a kiss, and as he felt the brush of love against his mouth, he knew the entirety of his love lay bare before the cosmos. So open, so satiated, so at risk of losing what he had been so patiently waiting for, he cried out in euphoric delirium losing himself to the passion of his lover. And again the concern of his lover stopped, in fear that they had gone too far and may have hurt Daniel. But there was only hurt when they broke apart. "please don't stop!" Daniel begged. "Even if it's just to hold me, to touch me. With your very look, you make love to me. If you would look away, I fear I would cease to exist." "I thought you said you could live apart from me." Armand gently teased as he kissed Daniel's eyes and licked the tears from his cheeks. "I can," Daniel whispered. "but not now, not when I've just got you back. Oh please don't stop, not now, I would die again. "No," Armand assured him, kissing his neck and tracing his tongue along the vein in Daniel's throat. "I won't go, not ever again my love. I want to be the only being that sates your hunger and drives your desire." "Yes." Daniel said breathlessly, slipping back into the his altered state, beyond this world... to the one where only he and Armand existed.