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A Novel Experiment

-Adrian L. Davis
He’s not afraid of your judgment
He knows of horrors worse than your hell
He’s a little bit afraid of dying
But he’s a lot more afraid of your lying

-Peart


“Penance can’t absolve your sin…” -Draiman

My name is Kieran Connor. This is not the name I was born with. I changed it to suit me. I cannot tell you exactly why, except to say that it allows me to exercise control. In this life, control is something I have very little of.

My name is just the simple part, an affectation. It is the superficial surface that does not weigh much except for on the lips of others. The rest is more complex, more fantastic and to most, quite unbelievable. Yet I am telling the truth and you must believe. My entire purpose, telling my story, writing this now, my very existence, is about belief. You must believe, for without belief you are nothing, like I was.

Nothing, until that night, October 31, 1992.

I am not a writer (as you can tell by the sentence fragments, run-ons and poor punctuation) so I’m not sure exactly how to tell this tale. It is just a journal, a record for the day I leave this place, this life. It is part memoir, part instruction manual, explanation and ALL WARNING.

I do not know how to put this. I’ve thought about it constantly over the past decade and dozens of labels and concepts come to mind. I’ve weighed and waged the arguments in my head. I’ve seen both sides and understand each view point as if they were my own. One label is simplistic, but only partially accurate. Another is scientific and specific but also cold and vacant. There were times I have approached this from the reverse perspective; what I am not. I found difficulty with that as well for, timing; history and ever changing events belie these answers. It is all changing, it’s all perspective and there is no definition.

So, I will do my best to explain. Perhaps I will simply show you the arguments and counter views and let you make your own evaluation (if you dare.) Or maybe I’ll just tell you my story, tell you what I know, what I believe. It is all contingent upon how long I live this life and when I have time to write. As you will soon learn, I am often quite busy and in danger.

I am a Vampire. This is the most simplistic explanation. However, it is not true and it makes me sick to my very soul to be placed with THEM. I am not alive. I am not human. Again, simplistic statements that are slightly more accurate but not entirely. There is a little bit of truth in all of my lies. Some have labeled me a Hybrid. This is probably the most technically accurate statement, but considering the very subject matter it too is flawed.

Think about it this way. Scientifically I am an entity that possesses the traits of both a living human and an undead Vampire. I can walk the day, but the Sun makes me sick, fearful and weak. (It pisses me off too…no Vampiric delusions of missing the Sun here.) I do need to drink blood. (Which I do in plenty.) I have the THIRST and the urges to hunt. I believe I can be harmed like any human, but I do heal quickly and possess uncharacteristic strength, heightened senses and psychic abilities. (I haven’t mastered that flying shit yet, but I can levitate for a few seconds…)

The problem is this, and it is at the core of all my thinking, knowledge and beliefs. My very existence renders science somewhat impotent. How can science and scientific theory be used to explain, classify or study something that its very doctrine says cannot exist? It is similar to the way I have always felt about Astrology. Astrologist and their minions of sheep claim that the study of stars in the night sky can somehow guide and predict the flow of people’s lives. Yet, we know that the stars we see are actually beams of light traveling great distances from stars thousands of light-years away. Many of these stars are long dead and the light form others have yet to grace our nights. So the canvas that Astrologists use is a false representation. How the fuck does that work? (Okay maybe the concepts aren’t that similar but I hate those star watching fuckers.)

Then there is the simple compelling truth. The truth that I prove to myself, just by existing. The only thing that truly matters to me. The only thing that truly matters to the world, should matter to you.

God exists.

God is not some philosophical concept or human’s way to cope with mortality. God is not consciousness as I once thought. God is not a myth or a fictional character in a great narrative. God is not a concept. God is real.

My self knowledge of God is not complete. Any creature with a soul that has not passed into Heaven will never have complete understanding of God. That is part of the rules. One of the Joys of Heaven is understanding. Understanding all of this madness on Earth and in Heaven. I don’t like to dwell on these notions or claim to have ultimate understanding. I will never see them. I will never have that ultimate understanding. My path is clear, straight to Hell.

But I do know things. I do understand some of this dance. I have experienced it, seen it, felt it. It has striped me. The Christians and Jews have it close to right. Many of the traditions, superstitions and religious rites are man’s twisted game. But a man named Jesus Christ did walk this earth. He was a man only by choice, for he was the son of God. Jesus did die on The Cross, purchase the sins of man, go to Hell and was Resurrected. I do not know the rest of his story. I cannot honestly tell you when he will return, if at all. I do know that is he does return I will suffer. Suffer as I should. I sometimes pray that I am in Hell long before that day comes. Although, there is a part of me that would like to see him, walking the Earth again. Even in my certain damnation it would be my only way to see him. This I know. This I am sure of. When I pass from this existence, this life, whatever it is, I will walk the streets of Hell.

So you see I know who I am and where I am going. What I am is for you to decide, but wait, there is more.


2

The unfortunate reciprocal of my knowledge of God is this; Vampires exist. Vampires exist, they live among us and they hunt. They look at humans as sheep, a simple source of food. Their numbers are low, for now. Although I tend to agree in some ways that humans are sheep-like, I take issue with the killing. I have the THIRST. I have hunted. In fact, at times I still hunt. I drink human blood. I have to, to stay alive. But my sin as a human was great. My denial of Him, my lust, my abuse of power, all of these sins enough for a lifetime. Enough to warrant my passage to Hell. So the day I knew, the day I crossed over, I dedicated this life, this mad existence, to God. I have two purposes now. When and where I can, I spread the truth of His existence.

And I hunt Vampires

Yes, I hunt my own kind. This is the only venue that you will get me to admit that I am kin to THEM. As many have found, comparing me to THEM, placing me in their same family will invoke a bad reaction from me. There’s a high probability it will get your ass kicked. I hate them. I despise them. I hate them for all the biblical and Freudian reasons. I hate them for what they did to me. I hate them because I hate myself, hate what I’ve become. I hate them because it took their evil to show me His light. I hate them because they took my life, just as I realized my entire life was shit.

At times when I am on a moralistic trip I’ll say that I hate them because they are evil. I know that is fanciful moralistic bullshit. None of us are innocent and perhaps some of us are only worth being a meal. To tell the truth, even though I hunt infrequently, there are a number of pederasts, drug dealers and serial killers that no longer walk the Earth. A friend, a priest, once admonished me. He said that if I only fed on the monsters I would pollute my soul with their evil. My response was, “What’s the fuckin’ difference?” Perhaps it was harsh, for I love and respect Jonathan and he is a holy man. He is a true believer and has helped me. But Jon has a misguided notion that my soul can be redeemed. So at times I have to remind him what I am.
(Even though the victims of those monsters I’ve killed haunt my dreams almost daily.)

So we have established that I hate Vampires and I love a priest named Jonathan Alighieri. I imagine that, if you are still reading this (and have not dismissed it as the ravings of a lonely Goth-Kid who listens to too much Manson.) then you want to learn more about me. How did I become this thing? I guess if I was a writer it would be the logical progression of the story. Chronological order is so comforting to the human mind. But I can’t do that yet. It is too soon and I don’t think my particular back-story is that important. Time is my enemy (among others) and there are more pressing issues that must be covered.

Let me just tease you with some facts that will help you piece things together better.

I was killed, or brought across, by a Vampire in 1992. I was a Washington, D.C. Metro Police Detective. I was a self-proclaimed “Agnostic” and a womanizer. On occasion, when the opportunity presented itself I would rob drug dealers and other criminals. Mostly I was honest and good at the job. My birth name was Darren Cooper and I was distantly related to Thomas Jefferson through the slave Sally Hemmings. Darren Cooper is dead. There are public birth, death and case records that are easy to find. There’s also media accounts and police reports. IF you’re that interested, look it up.

Now on to more important things.

What exactly is a Vampire? I figured it would be the best to start here as a foundation. That may help eventually explain, in part, what I am, although I doubt it. I can’t figure out what I am and neither can Jon or an army of scientists I work with.

The media knows vampires, it knows them well. Some of the Vampire myth you get from movies, books and television is on point. Some of it is way off, but the truth is fluid and somewhere in between.

A Vampire, by definition, by its very existence, is evil. There are no “good vampires, no Sesame Street puppet Counts, no Vampires turned cop no good guys amongst the lot. (Yes, you can include me because I am a truly evil bastard. Just because I kill suck heads does not change to want to eat you even if I “can’t help it”. My hunting is between me and God. You are irrelevant. If you get in my way or the way of the mission I’ll snap your neck like a chicken.)

A vampire is a human who was turned by another vampire. This is not an easy task and even Vampires that set out to “make” other Vampires are not always successful. It’s like the small fertility window in human reproduction, sometimes you’re prego’, sometimes you ain’t. A Vampire victim must be bitten and drink the blood of the host vampire prior to the onset of death. Even in ideal conditions this is a difficult prospect. Many fledgling Vampires die from physical incompatibility, disease, catastrophic injury and what Jon calls “God’s Will” or a “Good Soul” In other words, freewill or not, sometimes God just ain’t havin’ it.

A Vampire must drink blood to survive. The younger the Vampire the more blood it needs and craves. I guess that brings us to the “age” factor in Vampires. You will never hear me say that a Vampire is immortal. Father Jon and I agree on this one. All of our souls are immortal, it’s just a matter of our final destination. No living or even undead creature will live on the Earth forever. It is true that unless something kills a Vampire it just won’t die. But I can fix that.

When I say young or old Vampire I’m referring to the amount of time they have been undead. The victim of a Vampire can be just about any age, although children and the elderly are frail and hard to “bring across.” There are rumors, myths and stories about child vampires, doomed to stay an adolescent forever. Most of that is farce, children brought across usually die. There is even a best selling modern author who wrote such a tale. So it could be true, because she is a Vampire. The most important thing to know about the relative age of a Vampire is that their strength, speed and abilities increase with age. If you ask me, so does their evil.

Unfortunately Vampires do have super-human powers. They can’t turn into bats but they do attract them. They can control bats and other animals. They are like rats, they cannot turn into mist or walk through walls, but they can fit into small spaces. Most Vampires can knock a wall down, then walk through it.

A vampire is capable of reading your mind and planting suggestions there. I know humans that can do that. I guess I really need to be serious, my contempt for THEM tends to make me sarcastic. It tends to make me belittle and devalue THEM. I should not do that. They are dangerous. They are real and they want to eat you. So I’m sorry, let’s get back on track.

They are extremely strong. They are very fast. They are so fast that they can appear to the human eye to almost “teleport” from one place to the next. Some people with good vision, focus skills and a low blink rate have reported that they can see a blur. These people are normally air traffic controllers, pilots, competition shooters and even high stakes pool players. Vampires do like to go for the neck, but if they have the chance the femoral artery in the leg is ideal. It’s large, meaty and the blood there is nice. (Yes, I know from personal experience.)

Basically a Vampire is the embodiment of evil, with some of the constraints of that body. They do not turn into other creatures, but they can fly. They love to levitate and taunt their victims. Some Vampires, like the one that attacked me, love to fly at their prey upside down. They spread their arms and fold their feet over one another in a flying scoff at Jesus on the Cross.

They do not cast a reflection, not in a mirror, a glass window, shiny silverware or a good paint job. Not with green eggs and ham. Never. They do have the ability to fool you into thinking you see a reflection. They cannot be recorded by visual or audio means. A friend of mine, Dave Rosenblum (resident tech-head) thinks he has a way to video tape them. Dave always has ideas. (these ideas often involve me, getting really close to a suck head and pain.)
So all this leads up to the next explanation. My expertise, how to kill a Vampire.

Oh, what’s that? What do I look like in a mirror? Fuck you.


3

I gaze out the semi-frosted window into the thick blanket of night. The bittersweet breeze carries colorful leaves across the starlit ocean of nocturnal stillness. I had to produce that little aside, as I look into the Virginia darkness, compiling my thoughts. For no particular reason except to prove to you that I can. Despite my many protestations that I am not a writer, I am inclined.

I could certainly sling artistic and fanciful bullshit with the best of them, but that seems so passé, so trite, so irrelevant. This is not Wuthering Heights and I am not Conrad. This in not a novel, but a journal, a diary, an instruction manual, a cautionary tale, not of metaphoric ideals but of a horrible reality. So those who read this, although spuriously entertained, need to embrace the weight of the information within. My worthless life on canvas, painted to teach, to warn, to make you believe. So please, get past expectations of rolling hills and similes of clever linguistics. This is simply to tell you that some monsters are real. And to show you what to do to them before they “do you”. Capice? Get it? Now on with our show.

How to kill a suck-head.

I must protest again, for a writer would have woven together these facts in some fancy way, revealing them inside plot devices and complex schemes. Even a technical writer would have included some of these subjects in a more organized and concise outline. I’m writing this shit as if comes to me.

Back to the mythical accuracies and inaccuracies about Vampires. They are not immortal and you can kill them. (Well, maybe not you.) A wooden stake through the heart is a classic metaphor with lofty historical and spiritual implications. (What was The Cross made of?) Surprisingly it really gets the job done. Then again, so does any object of impalement directly through the heart. So you can spend hours whittling away on a log to make it sharp enough if you want to, but a really big knife will do the trick too. That works, or a sword, a metal pole, a spear, an arrow, even a well placed broken Coke bottle. (If you were strong enough.) Bottom line: pierce a Vampire’s heart and it dies.

That brings us to another aside that is vitally important. Whatever method you use to kill a Vampire, know this; if it does not disintegrate before your eyes, it ain’t dead! Depending on the strength and age of the Vampire, your aim and/or the method of attack you may or may not achieve success. And trust me, not killing a Vampire when you have the chance is not a good thing.

Dave Rosenblum has a theory that I actually believe explains the whole disintegration after death thing. Dave says that when a Vampire is killed (I say when its soul is released to Hell, he doesn’t quite subscribe to that, always the skeptic.) its body reverts back to it’s “Death State” and immediately decays to the point it should have at the time of human expiration. It is a good theory, but I’m not going to spend any time trying to prove it as Dave has begged me to. I just kill the fuckers, he can study what is left.

So piercing the Vampire heart or decapitation are two of the surest ways to destroy a Vamp. They are also the most difficult. Consider that you can’t see the heart and the strength it takes to decapitate a body with dispatch.

Some of the other myths are hideously false. Garlic, for example has very little effect. Vampires (and me too) tend to dislike Garlic and other strong spices because of our heightened senses. But Garlic is nothing more than a mere annoyance akin to cigarette smoke to a non-smoker. It will most likely just bring you a more horrible and violent death because it’ll piss the Vampire off.

A holy cross or crucifix is also ineffective at killing or warding off Vampires. (Unless you stab them in the heart with it!) but it does burn their flesh. I know this first hand for more than one reason. I wear a silver cross around my neck and there is a permanent, painful burn on my chest in the shape of that cross. My life is pain anyway and I owe God some tribute. Dave asked me to try a Star of David once and it burned Vampire flesh too. I think it has to do with the strength of belief in God.

Fire is also an ineffective and unpredictable weapon. I’ve seen it work, but I’ve also seen it aid in a Vampire’s escape. The temperatures have to be very high and I think the heart must be consumed in the fire. (Again another experiment Dave won’t get me close to.) My friends at the Defense Department (I use that term loosely I really don’t have any friends) developed weapons, namely smart bombs, designed to consume Vampires in immense heat and fire. I’ve seen this weapon used only once, to destroy a large coven (a rarity still) of Vampires. Perhaps I’ll tell you that story sometime. Perhaps.

One surprising myth tat does work is silver. Silver seems to posses some type of purity or property that cuts through vampire flesh like a hot knife through butter. (See, a real writer would have never used that tired cliché!) Because silver causes such prolific injury and seems to slow recovery time Dave and I were able to develop weapons based on that. (cool!) I carry good old fashioned guns that are not modified in any way. The ammunition however, was specifically designed for Vampire hunting. CIA contracted Federal Ammunition to produce silver rounds, partially jacketed in Titanium, hollow point, with a silver hydro-shok protrusion. The rounds are devastating, but still usually only serve to slow a Vampire down, weaken it, and catch it off guard. You know how hard it is to shoot a moving target exactly in the heart? It’s not easy, I have the scars to prove it.

So, you see, a Vampire is not immortal, not invulnerable. They are difficult to kill, but they do die. They can be injured. A vampire can die in a plane crash, a car accident. A young vampire can die from disease or physiological dysfunction. That, and a survival factor is why their numbers are relatively low. But we’ll discuss Vampire habits and sociology next, there’s still more killin’ to speak of!

So, before I move on (excitedly) and forget, the best killer of Vampires is the sun. Those suck-heads don’t stand a chance,. They burn, evaporate and die instantly. It’s really glorious to watch. Because I can operate in the sun, it gives me a distinct advantage. Especially because I don’t have to fight. Just break open a blacked out window, drag a coffin outside and open it, easy stuff like that.

Many of you are going to draw a parallel between me and a certain comic book (turned movie) character. I don’t mind the comparisons nor am I vain enough to think the character evolved from rumors about my life. I don’t know when the character was created (a real writer with researchers would!) and I somehow think it pre-dates my 1992 “crossing over”. I also know that my employer/partner (the CIA) keeps all information on me and other supernatural intelligence very close to the vest.

There are similarities, in fact I think I even subconsciously stole one of my weapon ideas from the comic book hero. I carry a nice, machete type knife made of silver. Now, mine does not protrude out of my clothing, nor does it resemble a samurai sword, or have a security device that impales unauthorized users. It is strong, lightweight and fits in a sheath that attaches to the small of my back, completely concealed.

My hunting exploits are rarely exciting as that hero’s nor do I have the martial arts fighting skills, the speed or strength portrayed by him. But I can walk the day, although it hurts me so. No, not much glamour here. Most of my hunting consists of real investigative skill, technology, intelligence information and tedious days of finding nothing. I chase stories and hoaxes, small town headlines and tabloid rumors. I’m more Fox Mulder than super-hero.

When I do find a suck-head I usually lay back and do surveillance. I’ll watch for hours or days finding a pattern (Vampires tend to be obsessive-compulsive and they love patterns, rituals and habits.) and searching for an ideal, safe and discreet way to kill. (Can’t go blowing up every house with a Vampire in it. Especially since no one will believe you. Worse for me since I work for the U.S. government.)

Normally I will catch them sleeping or weak from lack of feeding. I play the circumstances to my benefit. Drag a coffin into the daylight, quickly cut off a sleeping head. Those are my preferred methods. But it isn’t always easy and I do often find myself with a handful of fighting suck-head. I’m no super-hero and I get hurt all the time, but I haven’t lost yet.