Copyright © 2001, Steven J. D. Bean
I spent the next hour or so before sunrise wandering the neighborhoods around the Library, half-heartedly hoping to run into Artemisia again. I found myself instinctively wandering closer and closer to my own rooms as the sunrise was fast approaching. I then remembered that I had not yet fed. I was still young, then, and could not go too long without feeding, as I can now. I have heard that there are those of us who rarely feed at all.
As much as I hated doing it, I had no choice but to choose a victim rapidly and take him or her to my rooms. I would have to dispose of the body the next night. I ducked into an alleyway where I knew that there were often bums and runaways, hoping for the later. I got lucky; she couldn't have been more than sixteen. I approached her from behind and wrapped my arm around her as I walked up next to her.
"Are you hungry?" I asked.
"I'm not a whore," she said, looking desperately up at me, trying to pull away.
"Of course you are not," I smiled, "I merely thought that you looked hungry, and I am tired of having breakfast alone."
"Where?" she asked. I could see from her eyes that she had not eaten a decent meal in days. I smiled my most charming, harmless smile.
"There's a good grill about two blocks from here, I only need to run up to my apartment to grab my wallet."
She started to look fearful when I said this.
"No, no," I said, "you can wait in the hallway. I swear I have no intention other than to eat."
She agreed with a little more persuasion. I had not lost my touch! It was little effort at all to get her from the hallway into the rooms once in the quiet safety of my building. I was done with her in fifteen minutes. I laid her on the couch and covered her with a blanket. She looked like an angel sleeping.
The next day, I discovered my mistake. I awoke to the body on the couch, still angelic in cold beauty. I picked up her purse and opened it, something I rarely do now. I have found that it is preferable to not know who they are. Inside, her wallet contained her ID. Her name was Jessica Sands, she was seventeen, and from the city. If she had been a runaway, she hadn't gone far. A further search revealed more worrisome evidence; according to a business card in her wallet, her father, (at least I assumed it was her father by the same last name), was a homicide detective.
I now had the burden of disposing of her body in such a way that she would not lead investigators to me, or to Judith, who at that time I assumed would still be returning. I had not, at that time, mastered the secrets of disposal that I know now. I hadn't learned to make someone truly disappear. I sat for a few moments, thinking.
After midnight, when the streets became less crowded, I picked her up and, holding her over my shoulder, left by the fire escape to the roof. I ran along the rooftops, jumping carefully from one to the next while balancing the weight of her body over my shoulder. It was much easier than I might have thought, and I became complacent and slipped, dropping her ten stories into an alley. She landed only yards from a group of vagrants gathered around a restaurant dumpster.
I stood for a moment looking down. There was nothing I could do. I thought for a moment of swooping down and killing them all, but I figured that that might be more trouble than it was worth. I left as the first of the vagrants glanced upwards.
I ran along the rooftops until I could go no further. I fed on the outskirts of downtown; he was hitchhiking along the main roadway. As morning approached, I returned cautiously to my rooms.
As I approached the building, I noticed the police outside. Someone must have seen her enter the building with me the day before. There was no way that I could enter, and I didn't know where to go; I began to panic.
I spent the next day in a dark abandoned warehouse, huddled under a mass of tarps like a rat. When I awoke, I cautiously went out to find a paper, my only real source of any news about what had occurred:
_____ ____ Police today confirmed that the latest victim of alleged serial murderer Andrew Christwyne is Jessica Sands, seventeen-year-old daughter of Police Detective William Sands, a thirteen-year veteran of the force. Miss Sands' body was found in an alleyway off of Market this morning by several homeless men. When questioned by investigators, the men stated that the body literally fell from an adjacent rooftop. Further investigation has turned up several footprints on the roof itself.
Police canvassed the area and it is reported that Miss Sands was seen earlier this morning entering an apartment building on Waller Street. Descriptions given by the witnesses reportedly indicate that the killer was, indeed, Mr. Christwyne.
A search of the apartment reportedly turned up physical evidence that Miss Sands had indeed been in the apartment, though, police would not speculate as to whether it was the scene of the murder
. Miss Sands' death brings the official total number of murders allegedly committed by Mr. Christwyne to five, though unofficial sources state that the number may be as high as thirteen.
Police have intensified the search for Mr. Christwyne throughout the city and warn citizens that he is to be considered armed and extremely dangerous. If you have any information, police ask you to contact your nearest station house immediately.
I remained holed up in the warehouse for days, emerging only when absolutely necessary to feed, using extreme caution in selecting only the most ordinary, anonymous victims I could. I hoped against hope that Judith or Artemisia would find me. After a week, I gave up hoping.
It was in an alleyway near the Library again, where I had dared venture in the hopes of running into Artemisia, that the end for me almost came. I approached the boy from behind, judging from his attire that he had been on the streets for weeks. He looked thin, ragged, perfect. As I snuck up on him, I sensed something wrong. Every nerve in my body screamed out for me to run, but by the time I responded and turned I heard the shot. It was a trap.
The bullet entered my chest just below my ribs. I felt the hot steal rip through my flesh. I believe that I screamed as I fell to my back. A second shot entered my thigh. The pain was astounding, but not unbearable. I lay motionless; trying to determine which direction my assailant was shooting from. I knew, after a moment, that the bullets would not be fatal, the pain eased too quickly, but it was intense enough that I knew I wanted no more of it. After a few moments, they came out of the shadows. There were at least seven of them, both uniformed and not. One quickly spirited away the young boy, who apparently did not know that he was bait.
As they approached me, I sat up, glaring at the barrels of the guns they pointed in my direction.
"Don't move, Christwyne," one of them called out.
I stood.
"I said, freeze!" he yelled again.
I turned to look at the one who spoke. His eyes reflected terror. He had no time to fire as I rushed him and snapped his neck before the astonished faces of his men.
In the ensuing moments, I was shot six more times. Two officers were also hit by stray bullets in the melee. I remember hardly any of it; I was raging. Never, in retrospect, have I felt more the monster than I did then, ripping and crushing with no desire to feed, no desire to escape, only to kill. I had become what they made me out to be. When it was over, I ran.
I spent the next few weeks hiding out in the abandoned warehouse. I moved, however, from under the tarps to the bottom of a drainage conduit that ran beneath the cellar. I couldn't take the chance of being discovered while sleeping during the day by any chance police search.
It had been almost a month when Judith came to me one night, as I lay holed up in my fear and filth.
"Look at you, my beautiful Andrew."
Her voice frightened and thrilled me.
"Where have you been?" I asked, "Why did you abandon me?"
"The question is, Andrew," she said sternly, "what have you done?"
"I'm not blaming you for my actions, nor trying to shun responsibility for my carelessness."
"Carelessness? Is that what you call it?" Judith approached closer, "The reason that I have not come sooner is that they are looking for you. Not the police, but others of our kind."
"There are others, besides Artemisia?"
"I told you to stay away from her, Andrew, she can lead you to no good, as if you needed help finding it."
"Artemisia said?"
"Never speak that name to me again, Andrew!" Her eyes blazed like I had not seen since the alleyway before she turned me, when she dispatched Calloway's brother.
"The others do not like the attention that you have brought to us. They want you dead, Andrew, and if I had allowed them to follow me here, you would be by now."
"I've done nothing but try to survive in this hell that you gave me, Judith, you abandoned me!"
"You cannot leave such unusual evidence, Andrew, it should be common sense that if you leave a pile of mutilated policemen in an alleyway then they will know that there is something not right about you. Not human."
She turned and walked again to the entrance, as if to leave. She stopped and faced me again.
"I have to leave you, Andrew."
"You already have."
Her face changed from anger to what I can only describe as immense pain.
"You must leave, too, their anger will subside in time, once the intense scrutiny dies down. Hell, they'll probably be laughing about all of this in a few years. But for now, Andrew, leave. Go far away."
"Let me come with you."
"No."
I stood to approach her, but she backed away. Fearing her disappearing again, I stopped.
"Judith, why?"
"I don't know what you have become, Andrew. My artist, my poet?my monster."
"You made me what I am, Judith! Now, I can remain with you forever! Don't you see; if you leave me now it can only go for worse. Teach me, show me the way; I can be more careful."
"There is nothing I can teach you, Andrew. You have actually been quite a skilled pupil." Her eyes welled with tears, "I don't love you like this, Andrew. I'm sorry."
"You made me like this!" I yelled.
"No, I did not make you. I destroyed you. I destroyed the beautiful artist, the poet that I loved. I have made you ugly, like me. I don't know who you are, Andrew."
Judith disappeared.
I thought to try to follow but I knew there was no hope. There was no chance of me keeping up with her, of finding her, I knew.
I sat in the filth and cried.
As the night passed, I thought of what Judith had said. I had to leave, and I had to do it soon. It was too late to go that night, there was no time for me to get far and find shelter. I decided to leave as early as possible the following evening.
I reached Concord in a few days. The details of my modes of travel are not important. Suffice it to say that I walked until I was far enough away from the city to risk being seen again.
There was a certain attraction for me to Concord, the history, the great literary tradition. I spent the first night wandering the town, viewing the Old Manse and the Minute-Man Memorial under the stars. At one time in my life I thought that such a trip would be inspiring to me, set my muse to writing brilliant and life changing words, but I found no solace there, no inspirational muse, no relief from the torment that Judith's rejection of me left hanging on me like blistered skin.
For the first time in my new existence, I found myself sleeping in a cemetery. Sleepy Hollow, to be precise, near the spots where Emerson, Hawthorne and Thoreau lay resting. I dug a small, concealed indention in the side of the hill under cover of the trees and shrubs. I could go unnoticed for a while. I think that I was hoping that some of their essence would leach into me from the very soils. I think that I was going mad.
After returning from my hunt one morning, I found in my little ground-hovel, a note. It was from Artemisia, written in a beautiful hand, on fine paper. It was so out-of-place in the dampness of my hole that it was almost shocking.
Andrew,
I am leaving this note because I know that I could not bear to see you now, in your current state. I have seen enough to know that you have recovering to do, you have to find yourself, so to speak, as trite as that sounds. Having me around, I fear, would only teach you to depend on my presence, which I can guarantee no more than she could.
Be well, Andrew, and know this:
You are not the first she has done this to. Nor, I fear, will you be the last. She has a sickness, an insane attraction to artist and their art, I can explain it no better than that. She cannot separate an appreciation for the work, a love of the work, from a love for its creator. In her attempts to possess that which she loves, she ends up destroying it, at least to her eyes. She does not complete her own creation, her own art.
She abandoned me also, Andrew. I have been trying to reclaim that love for three hundred years. No, I have been trying to reclaim?something. In truth, I don't know whether I pursue her for love or revenge.
It is best for us both if we go our separate ways, for now. I'm sorry that it must be this way. Don't try to follow or find me, Andrew. I will find you when the time is right. I'm sorry.
Be well, brother, and be smart?learn from your mistakes, be wary of others, especially for a while. And follow your instincts, they are good and they are your best chance of gaining that which you seek.
I love you, as does she,
Artemisia
I am still running. Over the past years I have never stayed in the same place longer than two months. I have not made the mistake of attracting the attention of the authorities again, and I have not had any run-ins with any of the "others" that Judith so warned me about. At times I think that it was a lie to scare me; but at other times, I feel their presence, sense them near. Not looking for me, necessarily, but it is too soon to risk it. When the time is right to make contact, I believe that I will know it.
I have heard from neither Judith nor Artemisia since then. I dream of them both and imagine a life with us all together, a family. I do not get lonely, it is a state that I am in constantly, but there are benefits to this life that go beyond loneliness.
I am heading south, again, perhaps this time to Texas. I have not been there and it is supposed to be so big, if the bragging is true. Perhaps a creature like me can become lost there for a while until? well, until it's over.
I miss her.