Dave's Anatomy: My History As a Writer, #103: Vampire Justice: "Nocturne in a Deserted Brickyard.

Vampire stories take place at night, since that's the only time vampires can emerge from the safety of their dark hiding places. Night always has romantic associations, and especially since the 1800s. In the age of Beethoven, Chopin, and other romantic composers we get things like the "Moonlight" sonata and lots of compositions called "nocturnes," which meant music written to evoke the mysterious, quiet, semi-magical state of darkness. A literary example of this is a short poem by Carl Sandburg, famous for his work "Chicago." Many will remember reading it in high school and encountering the memorable first line of the poem, "Hog butcher for the world." Sandburg was popular when I was in grade school and anthologized in many textbooks. His popularity has dropped off quite a bit, but one of his poems, "Nocturne in a Deserted Brickyard," figures in one of my vampire stories. Here is the poem:

Stuff of the moon
Runs on the lapping sand
Out to the longest shadows.
Under the curving willows,
And round the creep of the wave line,
Fluxions of yellow and dusk on the waters
Make a wide dreaming pansy of an old pond in the night.

"Stuff" of the moon catches the reader's attention right away—not "light of the moon" or "rays of the moon." Stuff, as if it were not particles of light but something of substance, something you could pick up and handle. And, of course, the poet evokes night, willow trees, watery ripples, moonbeams on the water of an old pond. It is very much the "stuff" of romantic writing and music.

Jancinda

The night, though, is not always a romantic, numinous, mysterious time. It can be dangerous. It is a time when criminals stalk, looking for victims. In this story, it is also a time when vampires roam about to hunt. Jancinda Lamott, swoops into a deserted area to enjoy the quiet and repose of it before she goes to hunt. Jancinda is a conflicted vampire. She feels remorse that she must kill once a month to satisfy her need for blood. She will later express the anguish she feels from her Calvinistic background, saying, "How can God let something like this [becoming a vampire] happen and then hold us responsible for it?" She knows there are no answers for her question. The peace and serenity of the deserted tourist park with its old mill and mill pond, calms her.

Her calm is broken when someone seizes her and puts a knife against her cheek. She has been seized by a serial killer who says he plans to assault her and then kill her. Jancinda is in no danger and plays along, asking him why he wants to kill her, how many victims he has taken, and tells him she's sorry he lives such a twisted life. This strikes a chord and he tells her not to psychoanalyze him and to stay within her "her bounds." She asks what her bounds are and he says it is what he tells her to do.

Hop Cat Bar, Grand Rapids, MI

Tiring of the ruse, Jancinda turns around, bears her fangs, and shows her talons. Terror-stricken, he falls back and swings his knife at her. She catches it and snaps the blade in half with finger and thumb. She kills him, drinks his blood, and feels a little better about herself because she has destroyed a reprehensible person. She has done good. But not all her victims are bad. The conflicts mount in her mind. She calls her boyfriend, Wesley—a human mortal who knows she's a vampire and whom she protects from her undead friends. They meet at a local bar.

Wesley smiles when he sees her and asks her if she's been out hunting. She admits what he, familiar with her moods, already knows and tells him about her experience: “I went hunting. It was supreme irony. A guy grabbed me and put a knife to my throat. He said he was going to fuck me and then kill me.” Wesley laughs, says he wishes he could see the look on the would-be killer's face when he found out who he had encountered. Jancinda, however, is still in a funk. She invites Wesley to her place.

When they are finished and she is asleep, she contemplates the morality of her existence. How is what she does any different from what the serial killer she eliminated does? She thinks of the good she has done by stopping him. She also thinks of vampire friends who have done things for the good of individuals and nations. She realizes there are no clear-cut answers. One simply must cling to things one believes are right. She has her life. She has Wesley. She has a good job she can work at without going into sunlight. Jancinda must leave it at that. She must live the life she has and not expect to understand it.

The story appeared in Danse Macabre, a journal no longer available and with no archive (a journal by that name is currently being published, but it is not the same one in which my story appeared).

For more titles, see my Writer's Page.

The sequel to Sinfonia: The First Notes on the Lute will be released soon. Read the original you will have the backstory for the sequel.

I would love to hear your comments.

Happy reading.