The moonlight, a rather ambitious floodlight really, considering the ambient glow from the Stewart’s Shops down the road, bathed Brenda Higgins’ modest Poughkeepsie backyard. She was perched on her porch swing, a fleece blanket around her shoulders despite it being a perfectly mild evening, trying to enjoy the quiet. Trying being the operative word, because a low, resonant baritone, thick with an accent that tasted like old world and garlic, had begun to emanate from the overgrown Victorian next door – Mr. Cooney’s place.
“Listen to zem,” the voice rumbled, sounding remarkably close for a whisper. Brenda sighed, adjusting her bifocals. Here we go again. “Zee wind whispers through zee old stones of my castle.”
Brenda glanced at Mr. Cooney’s castle’ – a once-grand bungalow with a perpetually peeling paint job, a leaning porch, and a ‘No Trespassing’ sign in Gothic script that was largely obscured by an aggressively thriving patch of poison ivy. The ‘wind’ was probably just the draft whistling through his single-pane windows, or perhaps the distant hum of the Metro-North train.
“It calls your name, my darling, and your blood sings to me in zee darkness. What music zey make.”
Brenda snorted softly. Her blood wasn’t singing; it was doing its job, pushing nutrients around, maybe a little cholesterol. If it was making any music, it was a low, mournful cello about the pile of laundry waiting for her tomorrow. “Sure, Jorge,” she muttered under her breath, “a real symphony.”
“It is a symphony for my heart,” Jorge continued, clearly not hearing her, “a tired, cold heart zat beats only for you.”
Brenda thought about her own heart, a sturdy, if slightly weary, organ that beat mostly for a good snifter of cognac, the latest Agatha Christie mystery, and the occasional perfectly ripe avocado. ‘Tired and cold’ resonated a bit. Perhaps Jorge was just feeling the chill of a Poughkeepsie evening, much like she was.
“Come to me. Do not fight zee feeling zat draws you ever closer.”
The only feeling drawing Brenda closer was the urgent need to retrieve the remote that had slipped between the cushions of the swing. She shifted, grunting a little. “Oh, I’m fighting it,” Mostly fighting gravity, of her sagging bosom.
“Zee world of men is a pale, fleeting shadow. Here, zere is eternity.”
Brenda pondered this. The world of men was often a pale shadow, especially on Mondays. But eternity? She wasn’t sure she could handle eternity in Poughkeepsie. Her dental plan didn’t cover that. Plus, the thought of endless HOA meetings made her blood run cold, which, come to think of it, might actually appeal to Jorge.
“To die, to be really dead, zey say, zat must be glorious. But zey do not know. Zey do not know zee ecstasy of life unending, zee power zat fills zee veins with strength, zee glorious hunger zat is never quite satisfied.”
“Glorious hunger, huh?” Brenda squinted at the moon. “You mean like the hunger for a really good, greasy diner burger after a long day? Because I’m feeling that. Or maybe for a fresh-baked croissant from the bakery on Main Street that closes too early.” She imagined Jorge, dark and brooding, trying to explain the finer points of undeath to the unsuspecting barista. It conjured a smile.
A shadow detached itself from the deeper shadows beneath Jorge’s sagging porch and began to glide, with an alarming lack of gates, toward the shared fence line. Brenda braced herself. Here came the full presentation.
“Zee night is our canvas, my love. Zee stars, little diamonds on a cloak of velvet black.”
Brenda gazed up. Through the ever-present light pollution of Poughkeepsie, she could make out about seven stars and what she suspected was a weather balloon. Diamonds they were not. More like flecks of glitter on a very old, very worn velvet curtain.
“Soon, zey will be joined by zee crimson light zat spreads across zee sky, like a kiss upon zee throat.”
Brenda tilted her head. The only crimson light she could see was the oscillating red glow of the traffic camera at the intersection of College View Avenue and Raymond, which looked less like a kiss and more like a surveillance drone on a particularly bad day.
Jorge, a tall, gaunt figure in what appeared to be a very dusty velvet smoking jacket, finally materialized at the fence. His skin was pale, his eyes impossibly dark, and his hairline… well, it was receding dramatically. He looked less like a terrifying creature of the night and more like a neglected art history professor who’d forgotten to eat for a week. Or a century.
“Do not be afraid,” he intoned, his voice still that dramatic rumble, though a bit closer, so Brenda could hear the faint sound of crickets rubbing their legs together in his direction. “Zere are far worse things awaiting man zan death.”
Brenda folded her arms. “Oh, I know. A root canal. Trying to assemble IKEA furniture with only the pictograms. Getting stuck behind a tour bus on Route 9.”
Jorge blinked, his dark eyes narrowing slightly. He clearly hadn’t accounted for Brenda’s Poughkeepsie-hardened pragmatism. “A worse fate is to live and to not truly feel. To be one of zee crowd, lost in zee mundane, while I offer you all zee power of zee shadows.” He gestured grandly, nearly knocking over a particularly vigorous hydrangea bush.
Brenda considered this. “Lost in the mundane, huh? You know, Jorge, there’s a certain comfort in the mundane. Knowing the library opens at nine, knowing the special at Mahoney’s is always reliable, knowing my cat, Mittens, will demand tuna at precisely 6 AM. That’s not a bad existence.” She paused, then added, “And ‘power of the shadows’? Does that include getting a good parking spot at the DMV? Because that would be truly useful.”
Jorge looked genuinely flummoxed. His dramatic monologue had hit a wall of municipal bureaucracy and feline insistence. “Zee power… it is not for parking.” He sounded a little offended.
Brenda shrugged. “Well, that’s a shame. Because that’s a power I’d consider trading for. What is this power, then? Can you make my neighbors finally fix that broken swing set?” She pointed a finger towards the house on the other side.
Jorge shoulders slumped, his cape, which Brenda hadn’t noticed until now, seemed to wilt. He’d clearly expected a more… terrified, or at least impressed, response. “It is… the ability to command zee night. To walk among zee living unrecognized. To… to drink zee blood of mortals.” He offered the last part with a hopeful, if strained, theatrical flourish.
Brenda gave him a long, appraising look. “Right. And how’s that working out for you in Poughkeepsie? I mean, where do you even get blood? Do you have to, like, special order it? Is there a farmers market for that? And don’t you get, like, anemic from lack of actual nutrients? What about vitamin D? You look a bit pasty, Jorge.”
Jorge bristled. “My complexion is a sign of my eternal existence, woman! Not a lack of sunshine!”
“Uh-huh. So, this ‘life unending’… you ever tried to renew your driver’s license when you don’t have a permanent address or a birth certificate that isn’t written in hieroglyphs? Because that is a true challenge. Or keeping up with property taxes on a ‘castle’ that clearly needs a new roof? I bet you’ve got some serious deferred maintenance issues.”
Jorge sighed, a surprisingly human sound. “Zee eternal problems… zey are indeed eternal. One would zink immortality would free one from zem.” He looked utterly defeated. The grand seduction had devolved into a discussion of real estate and local ordinances.
Brenda patted the empty spot beside her on the swing. “Look, Jorge, I appreciate the poetic attempt. Really, you put some effort into that. But ‘ecstasy of life unending’ just sounds like an awful lot of paperwork to me. And frankly, I’m rather partial to my own heartbeat, thank you very much. It reminds me I’m alive, and that I can still enjoy a good slice of pizza without fearing for its blood content.”
Jorge stared at her, then at the moon, then back at Brenda. His dark eyes, which moments ago held the weight of centuries, now held a glimmer of something akin to confusion, and perhaps, a flicker of grudging respect. “Pizza,” he mused, the accent still thick. “Is zat zee ‘glorious hunger’ you spoke of?”
Brenda chuckled. “Sometimes, Jorge. Sometimes, it absolutely is.” She gestured towards the fence. “Tell you what. Tomorrow night, if you’re still feeling the eternal yearning for something to fill your ‘glorious hunger,’ I’ll order an extra-large with pepperoni. My treat. We can even watch Jeopardy!. It’s not eternity, but it’s a pretty good way to spend an hour in Poughkeepsie.”
Jorge looked from the moonlit sky to Brenda and the comfortable, mundane warmth of her porch. The idea of Jeopardy! And pepperoni, offered with such unvarnished practicality, was far removed from his dramatic vision of eternal damnation. Yet, somehow, it felt… less cold. His shoulders straightened, a hint of his old theatricality returning.
“Pepperoni,” he repeated, a new, curious note in his voice. “Zat is… acceptable. But only if zee cheese is, how you say, exquisitely melted.”
Brenda grinned. “Deal, Jorge.” Welcome to the mundane. It’s not so bad, really.” And as Jorge, still a vampire but now a vampire with a pizza appointment, slowly faded back into the shadows of his dilapidated Poughkeepsie castle, Brenda finally retrieved her remote. There were worse things than life unending, and worse things than the mundane. Like a truly cold heart in a world that, even in Poughkeepsie, still offered a decent slice of heaven.
