Chapter Text
The air was dank, and what little light shone through the cracks above caused the moisture on the walls to glitter, and gave the dust-coated cobwebs a strange translucent glow. To some, it would have been a terrifying place - a tomb, filled with spiders, coffins and strange sounds. But to others...to others it was a home.
In a corner sat one of its livelier inhabitants, watching with strange satisfaction as the misty air condensed and dripped slowly down the wall. His eyes were dark and deep set, and his pale, gaunt face made him look rather like a skeleton. His clothes were odd too - even though it was 2012, he wore what looked like Victorian evening dress. It looked old enough to be original.
Pushing open her coffin lid, Aunt Hildegard made a show of getting up for the night. She stretched her arms out dramatically, her red-painted talons thrust out at the ceiling, and yawned widely, showing her long fangs to the room.
“Good Evening darling.” smiled Uncle Ludwig warmly, turning away from the tomb wall. Hildegard might not be the easiest person to get on with, but for all of her theatricality and hypochondria, he loved her.
She flounced over to her husband, watching the droplets fall for a moment too, before moving on to loom over another coffin. This one was a little smaller than the others, and newer. Although by newer, you were still judging in centuries.
She rapped on the lid sharply.
“Rüdiger?” she demanded, knocking again. “Rüdiger, you have to get up. Your uncle and I have been up for hours. It’s nearly eleven! Even Lumpi is up and out and about.”
Uncle Ludwig rolled his eyes at the lie, but didn’t say a word. Rüdiger hadn’t been eating lately, simply hanging around the tomb night after night, and worst of all, he was developing a bad attitude. He hoped that he wasn’t taking after his son Lumpi. One perpetual rebellious adolescent was quite enough - he hoped he wouldn’t have to deal with another.
Slowly the lid of the newer coffin opened to reveal its scowling occupant, his black hair ruffled by sleep. For a moment they simply looked at each other, then Aunt Hildegard began again.
“Really Rüdiger....” she cried, reaching out a hand to touch his face, from which he recoiled, the scowl deepening. “You look terrible. You haven’t eaten for nights and nights, and your lips are getting so pale.”
He shrugged.
“Maybe I don’t want to eat. Maybe I’m not hungry?”
She shook her head disapprovingly.
“Rüdiger...”
At this, he sprang from his coffin and sat on its lid heavily, all in one fast, inhuman movement.
“Rüdiger, your aunt is right.” his uncle chided. “You can’t just hang around the tomb all night. You need to go out, go flying, go out and eat something.”
“Alright, alright. Maybe I will. No, I will go out, and I’ll bite every human I see, will that make you happy? I’ll bite dozens of them, scores of them. The whole town - no one will be safe! Will that make you happy? Will that make you leave me alone?”
Shoving past his aunt, he made his way to the dark stairwell which lead to the entrance to the tomb.
“We are just trying to look out for you Rüdiger.” called out his uncle. “There’s no need to act the petulant child.”
“I’m nothing like a child: I’m one hundred and 57 years old, which is exactly why I don’t need you to look out for me. Vampires don’t need anyone to look out for them.” he snapped, and left without another word.
* * *
Anton Besker was in a bad mood. He swung his gym bag absentmindedly around his shoulders as he walked home, his thoughts stuck on his friend Terry. Going to the gym together used to be the highlight of the week, but for the last two months all it had done was remind him that he had lost his only real friend. They had known each other ever since they were born - been neighbors their entire lives. Up until now that is. Teddy had moved away to Toronto for college, while he had had to stay in Edmonton. It didn’t seem fair that Teddy was off having adventures and making friends, while he was forced to stay home on his own, still living with his parents.
The streets seemed much darker and emptier without him walking next to him, joking and laughing, but tonight there was something else too. Like he was being watched, or followed. It made his neck prickle, and he hurried his step.
* * *
“Anton? Are you home?”
He sighed, and put down his pencil. He had been working on this panel for over an hour, and nothing he did seemed to look right.
“Yes mooooom,” he called back.
“Your father and I are going to get going now. We won’t be back until one, so we’re taking the keys just in case you want to go to bed before then, so don’t bolt the door, okay honey?”
“I won’t!”
He tapped his mouth with the pencil. He only had 3 pages left of the story left to draw, and not much time left to do it in, but he hated to leave a panel when he knew it wasn’t perfect. He wanted his work to stand out from the others in the book when it was sent to be printed. ‘Thirty Chilling Tales of Horror: a Graphic Novel Compendium’. That was 29 other artists and stories to compete with...and he didn’t even have an ending for his. He had been hoping that the monster’s face and motive would come to him as he went, but he hadn’t counted on the loss of Teddy.
He’d tried to write him an email a few times, but never knew what to say. There was never anything interesting that happened to him, and he felt stupid just saying ‘hi’ when he was probably off having wild parties and meeting girls and learning how to be independent.
He tried and tried to get something down for hours, but no matter what he did, it just didn’t feel right. He took one last look at his drawing-board, then tossed his pencil onto the bedspread. There was no point trying to force it, he might as well go and get something to eat, maybe watch some horror movies. It might even give him the inspiration that he needed.
But suddenly there it was again, that crawling on the back of his neck as he walked into the kitchen. He flicked on both of the lights, unnerved, and poured himself a glass of orange juice.
He knew he was alone. There was only one door, and he’d heard both of his parents leave through it, locking it behind them. More importantly, he lived on the 14th floor, so there was no other way anyone could get in or out. It was just a feeling, nothing more.
He walked down the dark hallway - the bulb had blown weeks ago, but no one wanted to get the step ladder out to change it - and looked into the even darker living room at the TV. The feeling was stronger now, even if he knew it was irrational. There was something about the darkness in the room that made him want to run back to the light of his bedroom like a child, and lock the door until his parents came home. He shuddered, and decided to forgo the horror movie - he was scared enough as it was – and after quickly pouring a glass of juice, turned on his heel back toward his bedroom. Although he made sure that his walk was decidedly calm and manly, even if it took some effort.
Pushing open the bedroom door open with his foot, he screamed as something huge and black flew at him from the from the open window, then stopped short. The juice was spilled, thrown in a great orange arc before the glass broke on the floor, but he was too scared to notice any of that, or even run.
For a second all he saw was a black shape, but then it moved, revealing a face. It was thin, with high cheekbones, and a deathly pale complexion which made its dark ringed eyes even more pronounced. For a moment Anton felt a huge surge of intense horror, paralyzing and as strong as a blow to the face, but then he felt his sense return a little. It was a haunting face, made up like something out of a German Expressionist film, but reassuringly human all the same. Anton found his voice.
“Who...what? How?” he demanded, looking between the figure and his window.
The boy smirked (which Anton now saw clearly the figure was), then leapt off the edge of the bed and started to look around his room, pausing by his drawing-board for a moment, then padding over to his comic book collection.
No longer scared, just confused and angry, Anton followed him.
‘Hey, I don’t know who you are -”
Riiiiiiip.
The stranger had grabbed hold of his vintage King Kong poster and torn it to shreds.
“What are you doing?????” he yelled, but the weird teenager ignored him and dived for his King Kong comic book collection. Pretty sure what was going to happen next Anton threw himself forward too, trying to wrestle him away from the shelf.
At once he found himself thrown to the floor, the boy standing over him, face stormy.
“Do you think you’re stronger than me?” he hissed.
Anton shook his head, his brief moment of anger and relief turning to fear all over again.
“Good. Because you’re not, human.”
“What's wrong with you???”
Above him the figure opened its mouth wide, to reveal long, dangerous looking fangs. Anton wished he hadn’t asked. This guy was obviously crazy, and probably dangerous.
“Nothing - I’m a vampire if you hadn’t noticed. I eat humans like you....are you scared?”
Anton nodded, it seemed to be the response the guy wanted.
“Good.”
But he didn’t seem pleased. He had an odd expression on his face, as if he were bored, angry and disinterested at the same time. He stepped backwards, and clicked off the bedside lamp.
“Don’t you know light is bad for you? Or at least, not this type of light, the other kind. Sunlight.”
Anton eyed the intruder warily.
“Look, I don’t know how you got in here -”
“I flew,” he replied offhandedly. Anton groaned in his head. This guy thought he could fly.
“Uh, okay, but anyway, you need to leave. Um.”
Anton had always thought that if someone broke into his house he’d be quite happy to hide in the closet until they were done looting - he didn’t like his stuff enough to get shot over it. But he’d never considered that anything like this might happen. How could you reason with someone so obviously out of touch with reality?
“I’ll leave when I want to, human.”
He turned back to the shelf of comic books, and Anton took his chance, jumping to his feet and running out of his room to the front door, but as he grasped the doorknob the intruder was already there, ahead of him. His eyes looked even darker than before, and he was grinning, showing fangs.
Anton froze, then had an idea. If the ‘vampire’ was bothered by his bedside lamp, maybe he could repel him with the lights in the living room? He clapped his hands as loud as he could, activating the large clapper lamp in the living room, hoping it would work.
To his relief the hallway was flooded with light, but the only affect it really seemed to have on the stranger was to make him flinch, his aggressive expression turning to mild shock.
“How did you do that?” he demanded, assault seemingly forgotten.
“Ugh...magic.” Anton stuttered, trying to stall. It was a lame excuse, but considering how delusional the boy was, it was worth a try. It even seemed to work.
“Magic? You can do magic?” he asked, a spark of interest in his eyes.
“Ugh...yeah.”
“I bet you can’t do this,” he said, voice suddenly cold again, and to Anton’s amazement, the he old rose off the ground and up to the ceiling, where he hovered, looking triumphant.
“No, I can’t.” he admitted, staring up at him with a numb mixture of terror and interest. He knew that what just happened - was happening - was impossible, and that he should be doing something more dramatic. Shouting, fainting, waving his arms, something like that…
But instead he found himself rejecting it on some level, not believing what his eyes were telling him. He just gazed up at the dark figure, partially silhouetted against the skylight, and wondered what to do now. This was something that happened to the people in his stories, not real life. Not to him. It had been much easier when he was sure he was dealing with a crazy delinquent, and figuring out the details could wait until the situation was over, but now that didn’t seem like a viable option.
Silence stretched on as they both stared at each other, Anton open-mouthed, and the boy cross armed with a bad-tempered expression.
“What’s your name?” the vampire demanded at last, still floating five feet off the ground.
“Anton.”
“I’m Rüdiger.” he looked down at Anton, scrutinizing. “I bet you haven’t met anyone called Rüdiger before. I’ve met tons of Antons.”
“No. I haven’t met a vampire before either.” he admitted.
Rüdiger laughed, gliding down to the floor once more. “You wouldn’t have. There aren’t many of us around. What do you know about vampires, Anton? Anything at all.”
“Um, a bit, I think. Or at least, I’ve read a lot about them...”
He was conflicted over whether bunching his shoulders to protect his neck would be a good tactical decision, or if it would attract attention back to the notion of biting…
“It’s probably not true.” Rüdiger snorted, and without looking back, he stalked off, back into Anton’s room.
Anton looked longingly for the front door for a moment, but remembering what had happened last time, he decided his best bet was to keep the vampire talking. He got the feeling that if it were there just to kill him, he wouldn’t have introduced himself. Not that the idea he might die felt too real either.
When he got to his room, Rüdiger was already sitting on his bed, flicking through one of his books.
“You like vampires, Anton?”
“Yeah...I like all kinds of horror things like that.” he gestured around his room. It was plastered with old movie posters, and the bookshelves were stacked with novels, comics and ‘non-fiction’ books on the supernatural.
“You’ve got good taste in vampire novels” he said, flashing the cover of Bram Stoker’s Dracula at him. “Although I can’t say as much about the rest of it.” He eyed the torn up poster with disgust.
“Well, nothing beats vampires, everyone knows they’re the coolest.” Anton grinned nervously, trying to get on Rüdiger’s good side. It didn’t work though, as the boy visibly deflated.
“Yeah...Could I borrow this?”
He was taken aback - a minute ago he was acting like he wanted to bite him, now he wanted to borrow his books?
“Borrow?”
“Steal, take, whatever. I might bring it back. No promises. Vampire’s don’t make promises.” he snapped.
“Vampires don’t make promises?”
“No. Vampires look after themselves, and that means no obligations....I could still bite you, you know.”
The last part seemed as much reassurance for himself as it was a threat to Anton. The vampire just looked sad now, and didn’t seem to be in the mood to bite anyone.
“Ugh, sure you can borrow it. Borrow anything you want.”
Rüdiger looked down at the book again, but didn’t turn the page. Fear started to rise in him again, and he desperately clutched at things to say to keep the vampire’s thoughts away from blood.
“So, what do I have wrong about vampires?” he asked hesitantly.
“Everything.”
“Like what? I mean, were you born like this?”
“No.” The vampire looked up at him. “I died. A long time ago.”
“How long ago?”
Anton was still scared, but he just couldn’t stop his curiosity. He knew that asking questions like that was stupid, but he was desperate to know. It was a whole new world opening up, that is, if this boy really was a vampire. A part of him still found it hard to believe, even after what he’d seen.
“I’m 167, give or take. It all blurs after a while”. Rüdiger fell back onto the bed with a thump, tossing the book onto the floor as he did so. “It’s a long, long time.”
“Yeah...I can’t imagine what it would be like to live that long. And I mean, you’re not going to die or anything. Well, you could die, I guess, right? I mean, if I drove a stake through your heart or pushed you out into the sun -” Anton started to garble, but stopped when he saw Rüdiger’s expression.
“Yeah, well, if you would die too if I bit you and sucked out your blood.”
Anton felt faint.
“Please, come on. I mean, you wouldn’t want my blood, I’m sick, anemia, diabetes, malaria. I have to take pills!”
“Maybe you do, but maybe you’re lying? You don’t smell sick to me, and I haven’t fed in so long,” he growled, sitting up.He expression reminded Anton of a cat hunting. Confident, focused and predatory.
“You don’t need to bite me okay? I mean, I wont tell anyone you were here - they’d think I was crazy! Why don’t we just talk okay? Tell me about vampires, or whatever you want to talk about. We can be friends!”
Rüdiger stopped, but he looked skeptical.
“There’s not much chance of that. Unless you were a vampire. Which can be arranged.” He flashed fang again.
“NO, no thanks.” Anton replied, shaking a little. I was getting a bit too real for him now. Those fangs really did look attached. Not to mention he’d just seen this guy fly around his living room.
Suddenly there was a sound coming from the front door, and they both froze. It was his parents, back early from their party. He could tell it as them from their voices.
“Who is that?” Rüdiger hissed, glaring at the door.
“My parents.” he whispered back, suddenly afraid for them too.
As the front door opened, the vampire shrank back into the shadows, out of sight.
“Anton?” he mother called.
“Y. Yes Mom!” he called back, fear making the words stick in his throat.
“Are you okay? You sound like you’re getting a cold...”
He glanced back at Rüdiger, whose eyes glowed faintly red in the gloom.
“I’m fine mom.”
“Okaaaay. You could get to bed soon though, it’s getting late.”
“Okay mom.”
She walked away into the livingroom, following his father, and he sighed with relief. He didn’t want them coming in here with a vampire sitting under the window sill.
Speaking of which, Rüdiger was no longer there. Instantly he hunched his shoulders up to protect his neck, and looked behind him and above him, but nothing. He ran over to the wall and switched on all his lights, and opened his closet door. Still nothing. Rüdiger was gone.
* * *
“Anton. ANTON.” someone whispered urgently.
His eyes snapped open. It had taken him hours to get to sleep, convinced Rüdiger had hidden himself somewhere to lie in wait, but he must have drifted off.
“Anton, show me your parents.”
“What???”
It was Rüdiger, standing over him looking grim. At once he shrank back, almost falling out of the other side of the bed.
“My parents? No, why would I show you my parents! You’re a vampire!”
He scowled again.
“What’s that got to do with anything? We both know I’m a vampire.”
“You’ll bite them that’s why - I don’t trust you. Why else would you want to see my parents sleep anyway? It’s weird.”
“I don’t want to bite them, I just want to see them, okay?”
Anton shook his head, and the pair looked at each other in silence before Rüdiger roughly grabbed him by the collar and bodily pulled him out of bed and over to the window.
“Oh my god, let me go, let go of me!” he cried, trying hard not to wake his parents, but still desperate to get away. But Rüdiger took no notice, and to Anton’s horror he pulled him up and out of the window. For a dizzying, sickening moment all he saw was the 14 floor drop to the city below, but he didn’t fall. He hovered in the air with Rüdiger, who was still holding his pajamas tightly.
“Now do you trust me?” he demanded. “I could let you go any time I wanted to, but I’ve not let you go, have I? And I didn’t bite you before either, did I?.”
“Please, please take me back inside,” he sobbed quietly. Rüdiger rolled his eyes distemperedly, but to Anton’s amazement did what he asked. He could have kissed his carpet as the pair glided back into his room.
“Now, show me your parents.”
“Okay, okay,” he whispered, shaking like a leaf. Whatever happened, he never wanted to have Rüdiger do that to him again. It wasn’t like he could stop him doing anything he wanted to anyway, he had just proved that. Maybe it was best to humor him. It had half worked last time after all.
The pair padded gently through the apartment, to his parent’s room, where Anton quietly cracked open the door.
“It’s dark, you wont be able to see them anyway.”
“I have terrific night vision, thanks,” he snapped back.
They paused for a moment, then Rüdiger snorted, and stalked back to Anton’s room, and hopped onto the window frame, snatching ‘Dracula‘ as he went.
“I forgot this.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Anton was still not feeling the better for his flying session.
“I’ll bring it back, maybe.”
“You’re coming back?” he didn’t like the sound of that.
“Maybe.” The vampire shrugged. “Who knows. Goodbye Anton. Maybe for now, maybe forever.”
And with that, he launched himself out of the window, and was gone.
Anton bolted the windows with trembling hands, wondering if he was going insane.