Dave's Anatomy: My History as a Writer, #78: "The Angel from the Dead."

Winter scene in Grand Rapids

Vampires continued to be a subject for my stories.  In their mythology, no one is born a vampire. A transformation takes place. In my supernatural world, one can become one of the undead by being bitten, though the number of people who do is small—one in three thousand (most people simply die from the bite). My character, Jancinda Lamott, enters the world of nocturnal creatures who live off blood one winter night a few blocks from her apartment in downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan. Someone picks her up out the snow and carries her to her apartment. The woman is named Bonita. Jancinda thinks she has been mugged and thanks Bonita for helping her. She asks if she has called the police or emergency. She does not reply. After a while, her boyfriend appears. Bonita asks him if she knows who it was. He replies that it was Julian.

By now Jancinda is growing impatient with their incomprehensible talk. She wants to contact law enforcement to report the assault and wants to go to the hospital because she thinks her assailant scratched or bit her. Her neck is sore and burns. She has cuts or puncture wounds on one side. Bonita still doesn’t answer. She takes Jancinda to a mirror. They stand in front of it. Neither of them has a reflection. Bonita’s cat appears and nuzzles her shins. She picks it up. The mirror reflects the cat but neither of the two women. Jancinda wonders what is going on and wonders if this is some sort of trick. Bontia tells her she has no reflection because she is a vampire now.

Jancinda’s reaction is predictable. She thinks Bonita and Ivor are insane and mean to harm her, bolts for the door, opens it, and makes a break. When her arm is hit by a beam of sunlight, she screams in pain as the couple pull her back inside. Her arm is burned—a red, second-degree burn. After angrily chiding her boyfriend for leaving the door open, Bonita sits Jancinda down. She is sobbing in pain. Bonita speaks to her: “That,” she said, "is what the sun will do to you. You must not go out in the sun—never again. You see what will happen if sunlight even touches you, even for a moment.”

But as horrible and insane as the idea is, Jancinda knows, just from that moment of experience that indeed she is a vampire. She instinctively hates the sun. Bonita hugs her, tells her she is sorry for what happened, puts Neosporin on her burn, and announces that she is Jancinda’s angel. Angel, which in the original language meant “messenger,” is someone who teaches and cares for a newly born vampire, initiating her into the ways of the undying.

Vampire Sorrow

A vampire doctor comes and treats her burn. She begins to find out about her new life and finds it is different from the movie versions. She will not sleep in a coffin but must sun-proof her apartment. There are vampires who do sun-proofing for a living. She must never go out in the sun under any circumstances. She will eat, sleep, excrete like a normal human; she will not menstruate and cannot have children. But despite her intake of regular human food, she must have blood. Normally, this would have been repulsive, but she understands it must be. Bonita takes her out to teach her to hunt.

She and Bonita go to a park where victims are easy to find. They come across some old hippies smoking dope. Jancinda senses prey and feels changes sweep over her: … sensations seized and energized her. Her hearing grew acute. She seemed able to see in the dark. And her teeth felt odd. As she raised her hand to feel her mouth, she saw that their ends had changed from soft pads of flesh and fingernail to hard black talons like those on the feet of carnivorous birds. She ran her tongue over her teeth. Her canines had grown. They had turned to long, sharp fangs. The hunger for blood, too, had risen from deep inside her with unbearable poignancy.

She kills and drinks blood. She realizes she is truly one of the undead. It is not a delusion and not a dream. A new life lies before her—one she would have thought horrible but now seems like a livable future. She and Bonita smoke the joints their victims were toking on. Bonita invites her to visit Dr. Grins, a comedy club where Ivor, who does stand-up, is performing tonight. When Jancinda expresses surprise at this, Bonita tells her that the night belongs to her. There is lots to do, other vampires to meet, a whole nocturnal world that lies before her—a life that will not end.

“The Angel from the Dead” appeared in an Australian magazine called Roar and Thunder, which is, sadly, no longer published. They do maintain an archive, however, and you can read the story here.

If you like reading vampire tales, my novella, Sinfonia:  The First Notes on the Lute is for you. Get a copy here.

For more titles, check out my Writer's Page.

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