The Question

"What could you have done," She asked, through gritted teeth, "to make them hate you so much?"

Still facing the window, he said, "I made them immortal."

Apprentice, Master

I've never understood the killing. I mean, on an intellectual level, it makes sense, a compulsion the execution of which gives you pleasure. Being a slave to my own compulsion, I do, to a certain extent, get it. But, in my gut, I don't think I'll ever understand why death is what some seek to inflict.

I see a lot of death already. Not so much, since I've gone into private practice, but my early days as an intern were spent in a facility that saw more than it's share of man's inhumanity to man. And I've been angry, ragingly angry, at times. What human hasn't? Never so angry, though, that murder ever became even an idea. Does that make me better than other people? I don't think so. I'm a bit different, is the thing.

My mentor, Colin, saw a difference in me. I was an orphan, a street-rat, with no education and an intellect geared only towards finding food to eat and safe places to sleep, before Colin came into my life. Had he not taken me in, I've no doubt that I would have ended my days as a John Doe in the city morgue, or dying in jail. Under his guidance, I have become so much more than that street-rat could have imagined. A respected medical professional looks back at me from the mirror, tall, strong and clean-limbed, well-dressed, with the best teeth money can buy.

Undressed, scars that would shock and disturb those who think they know me best appear. Scars that paint a picture of a life much different than that which they assume I've lived. But no one sees me undressed, other than Colin. When I take care of my esteemed mentor, I wear as little as possible. I feel I owe it to him. After all, most of the scars are his work.

I have more personal reasons, of course.

Our first days together were... difficult, for both Colin and I. When he took me in, I couldn't see the gift I was being given, for obvious reasons. I was thrust into a world I didn't understand, and became angry and intransigent as a result. The more Colin tried to mold me, the more I insisted on not being molded. I confess, I did all I could to frustrate him, and the more I did so, the more scars I earned. Looking back, I can see how close Colin was to simply casting me aside, giving me up for a bad job. When it all came to a head, though, we got through it, Colin and I. An understanding was reached, and our relationship became something altogether wonderful, something I can say without fear of correction as being the defining thing in my life. Everything I am comes from it.

The years that followed were idyllic, truly. I learned and grew and became something wholly new. Colin's fascination with the human form ignited my own passion and led to my career in medicine, and helping him with his compulsion helped give form to my own.

But I never understood the killing.

We would spend weeks hunting, capturing and breaking our subjects, just to murder them. Then what? You have a body to dispose of. There is meat to be taken, of course, but most of the corpse has to be gotten rid of, without anyone being able to follow a trail back to us. Hundreds of pounds of bone and viscera had to go, and hours had to be spent in planning and executing the removal, all with the threat of discovery hanging over us. I can't even tell you about how many close shaves occurred, how many on the fly murders had to be committed, how much terror was experienced and perspiration shed, during the course of, essentially, taking out the garbage.

I don't remember when I first understood which part of the process truly engaged me and drove me to continue. I suppose, though, it was when I first saw the family of one of our subjects on television, pleading for someone to give them hope. I began to collect such displays, drinking in the misery of the father, the mother, the siblings, the children, wallowing in their naked fear of the unknown.

Colin was focused only on our subject, but I found myself fascinated by what he considered meaningless ephemera. We quarreled, for the first time in a long while. In our disagreement, our true difference became apparent. Colin wanted to kill. I believe that, if he could have, Colin would have simply walked the earth, killing indiscriminately. Heaven, for him, would be humanity on an endless conveyor belt, allowing him to murder each person as they drew in front of him, watch the light die in their eyes, and them move immediately on to the next. For all his skill in torture, for all his careful mutilations, Colin only did these things for the same reason a man puts off lighting a fine cigar, to increase the frisson of the moment he finally allows himself the pleasure.

My need, what I thought of as the meat of the experience, however, was the pain caused by our exercises. The look in a subject's eye the first time you caused them pain; the disbelief that it could be real, the pleading... The change that occurs as the days go by, as their world contracts to the simple binary state of being or not being tortured, and how the pain brings terror anew each time it is applied...

I confess, I become immoderately excited simply thinking about it.

Colin reacted badly to my suggestion that our modus operandi change. I can't blame him for that, nor was it unexpected. Words were exchanged, and finally, blows. But Colin was not the man he had been when he first took me in, and I, I had grown.

So my new path was undertaken alone. So be it. I must be true to myself, don't you agree? Our workshop had always been a theater of pain, but now the pain became primary. Pain would begin here, and spread farther and wider than Colin could have imagined.

How, you ask? By eliminating death! Death is an end, that is all. As a medical professional, death was the enemy, and so it was with my hobby. Death ended the experience of pain, and my enjoyment of that experience. Inevitably, death had to go.

Take the Pianist, for example. A young, fresh-faced girl, not a genius but unarguably skilled, a person who obviously lived for her art. To take her, watch her as her hands were destroyed, simply to kill her? A waste. But to do these things, then return her to the world? To see the happiness of her loved ones curdle into horror as the full implications of what has been done to her become apparent. To watch, as the mother begins to drink, as the sibling becomes afraid of the world, as the father becomes a martyr to the needs of his damaged child? To observe the classmates try to understand how such a thing could occur, to see the teacher who doted lose faith and retire... this was something worthwhile.

The music lover? Damage the eardrums, let tinnitus make a mockery of their former joy. Singer? Remove the tongue, damage the jaw, destroy the throat. Athlete? Joints never heal correctly. Surgeon? Destroy the fine motor control in the hands and possibly the eyes.

Colin? Keep him alive. Remove the feet, arms, and one eye. He was fastidious, so remove his ability to control his bladder. He was a dedicated vegetarian, so force him to survive on meat, often from his own body. He loves to kill, so force him to watch the torture of others without the sybaritic end he needs.

Pure, cold water is better than any alcohol ever discovered.

Half

Halfway through the day,
Halfway through the week,
Halfway through the month,
Halfway through the year,
Nothing,
Except for everything,
Happened.

No one ever says yes

'You come seeking answers, yes.' A statement, not a question. The voice came out of the dark, emanating from the wizened form just barely visible through the smoke and shadows of the small hut. The close air seemed suffocating to the supplicant.

'Yes. Yes, there are things I wish to know, things only one such as yourself can tell me.'

'Heh heh.' A dry sound, devoid of all humor, like the sound of a foul insect rubbing its legs together. 'I can answer your questions, yes. I know things you cannot imagine, things that would send your feeble mind screaming into insanity to protect itself. Yes.'

'This I know, venerated one.' He used the title not out of respect, but fear. 'I have come far to seek your wisdom.'

'I shall answer your questions, yes. I will give you knowledge and wisdom you think you want. It will destroy you. Your end begins here, yes.'

'I must know, venerated one. I must.'

'Oh you think you do, yes. Heh heh. You think you do. All who come before think they must have the knowledge they seek, but I tell you now, it shall do you no good, yes. It shall destroy you, yes. You are destroyed, and yet you know it not, yes.'

'I have come so far, venerated one...'

'Far, yes, you have come far. They all came far. I told them what they thought they wanted to know, yes. What shall I tell you? Would you like to know the time and date of your eventual death?'

'No, venerated one, first I seek the answer to...' He stopped, as the venerated one grumbled something. "I'm sorry, venerated one, I couldn't hear you?'

'Nothing. Ask your question, yes.' The elderly being said, but when the supplicant once again began to speak, it cut him off with an exasperated sigh.

'I'm sorry, venerated one, is something wrong?' The ancient sage shift, and mumbled again, just below the level the man could understand.

'Venerated one, I couldn't hear...'

'No one ever says yes!', The old one said in a peeved tone.

'I'm sorry?' The supplicant was bewildered.

'Do you know how long I've been doing this, boy?', the being said, leaning forward, allowing an errant beam of light coming through a space in the gnarled wooden wall to glint off a huge, red eye. 'I've been here since before your home was even a thought, since the days when your kind was just learning to speak. I've been here, at the ass end of all things, for long enough that, if your puny mind could comprehend the number of days I've seen, it would force everything else out of your head and you'd starve to death as a drooling moron. Which I would then eat. I've been here, communing and making deals and bartering fragments of my very soul to gain information that has brought you over immense distances and through ordeals which no sane being would endure, for so goddamn long that I wouldn't be able to remember my own name, even if I hadn't traded it for more wisdom. And for that entire time, a parade of idiots, just like yourself, have wandered by, with their petty problems and halfwit conundrums. And each one who comes to pester me and interrupt my work, I ask if they would like to know when they're going to die. Not one of you nimrods has ever, not once, not a single time, said yes!'

'I'm sorry, revered senior, but why would anyone say yes?'

'Why? Why? Because, you slobbering pinhead, it's important! Knowing when your life ends is the kind of thing that allows you to plan! To make the most of your time! You pea-brained simpletons all want to know simple, idiotic things! Where can I find the Nut of Wisdom? How do I dethrone my brother? How can I make Griselda the pig-keeper love me? Why do the seasons change? And to each of you I offer a nugget of real wisdom, something that, unlike whatever stupid question you've dragged your ass hither and yon to find out where I was, and then even farther to get to me, you wouldn't be able to figure out on your own if you took two damned minutes to ponder it. I offer something ineffable, and all of you say, nope, I'd like to know how to keep ants out of my butter!'

'But death is frightening, old one... OW!' The man yelled as the creature struck him of the forehead with the knobbled end of its ancient wooden staff.

'Not knowing when you're going to die is frightening, clod! Death is easy! It's slipping into a warm bath! It's laying down in a cool, welcoming bed! Waiting for it to happen is the hard part. Knowing when it's going to happen means you can end it how you please, insulting everyone who annoys you, owing everyone money, and in bed with someone elses wife, or daughter, or cow!'

'Still, I don't see...'

'Shut! Up! You don't see anything! You actually thought it was easier to hie out to the middle of goddamn nowhere and risk your soul to ask ME to solve your problems! Of course you don't see! That goat you passed outside, the one I use for clothes and milk and heat in the winter and love, it's got more wisdom in one of it's cloven hooves than you ever will! You can bet, if I asked it if it wanted to know when it was going to die, it would happily and humbly take the information! It would be over the moon knowing that such a gift had been given to it by one so ineffably wise as myself!'

The man sat, wide-eyed, as the ancient form in the shadows panted, out of breath from its tirade.

'You know what? Screw it.' The being waved its stick at the door the man had entered through. 'Get out. Get out! No wisdom for you, dummy. No actually, there is some wisdom for you. You came all this way and you risked a lot and you don't get your question answered. That's it. All you get is yelled at. You know why? Because life isn't fair, you puddingheaded son of a bitch. Now screw, before I turn you into a frog."

Mojo of the Blood-Fire Apes! Ch. 12

      I hit the bottom of the empty pool flat on my back, hard enough to knock the wind out of me, if I'd had any. Dropping twelve feet onto concrete wouldn't have slowed me much, normally, but the three holes in my chest would and did. Even for someone with my 'condition', large caliber slugs weren't the kind of thing that you could just brush off. I might be a gorilla, and a vampire to boot, but pain is pain.

      The world went fuzzy for a bit. When it slid back into focus, first thing I saw was one of the bonobos who'd ambushed me swinging down the ladder hooked to the side of the pool. I could hear him hooting to himself as he rolled over to where I was splayed out, bitching about being sent down to put another round into a guy just took three in the chest.

      I'd have felt bad for him, if he and his pals hadn't just tried to punch my ticket. Low ape in the pack always gets the crap jobs flung at him. Also meant he was going to be the first of them to die.

      He looked surprised when his eyes met mine, and even more when my hand shot out, faster than he could track, and grabbed him by the wrist. I twisted, hard, his elbow dropping and his shoulder pulled towards me. I got the hand holding the gun pointed back towards it's owner, just as the order to fire reached his trigger finger. What was left of his face looked most surprised of all.

      The round that killed him had severed an artery, and I clamped my mouth over the pumping spray. I don't like to feed on my own kind, but I'd need the juice to survive the next few minutes.

      I'd gotten a good bit of the blood down when the first shape appeared at the edge of the pool. It took a second for the scene to register with this fella, but when it did, he let out half a swear and reached for his cannon. While he'd been goggling, though, I'd pulled his dead friend onto me, and used my legs to shove the body up over the lip of the pool, and it was still rising and moving fast when it hit him in the chest. Both the living and the dead vanished from sight.

      I used the momentum to roll forward onto my feet, crouched, and leaped upward. No normal gorilla could have passed the edge of the pool and still been rising, but a vampire with a load of fresh blood in him can do all kinds of amazing things. The other four bonobos seemed to be moving in slow motion. As I passed the closest one, I made a long arm and wrapped my fingers around his head. My momentum pulled him off his feet, and his weight brought be around in a circle, until I landed on my feet. It felt like something cracked when my hand, still holding his head, came down hard on the tile floor. I was already moving, even as I registered that, leaping forward and throwing a balled fist into the chest of another bonobo. Ribs and sternum gave way, and the force of my hit took him over the edge and into the pool, a line of blood coming out of his mouth.

      I turned toward the last two would-be assassins. They were standing, one behind the other from my perspective, all three of us in a line. I closed the distance to the nearest one, using one hand to grab the wrist of his gun hand, forcing it out of line with my body. The other hand I wrapped around his neck, lifting him slightly off the ground. His eyes, wide with fear, locked onto mine, and I felt the tendons of his wrist tighten and loosen as he fired round after round into the ceiling of the abandoned pool-house.

      The last bonobo had time to get a good bead on me, and unload three quick rounds in what felt like a tight group. Pity his partner was between the two of us, or he might have done me some serious harm. As understanding spread across his face, I reached out one last time and gave his head a sharp twist. And that was that.

      They'd come prepared for a gorilla, and for a PI with a hard rep, but they'd never expected a... Vampire Gorilla, PI.

A Drink

“Heaven,” Hes said, “is a shit-hole."

The young man looked shocked. “I'm sorry?”

Hes finished his shot, and repeated, “Heaven is a shit-hole. A slum. A 'wretched hive of scum and villainy', if I remember the quote right.” then tapped the shot-glass twice on the bar.

“Heaven is perfect, y'see. Not my perfect, or yours, probably. But perfect in God's eyes. Not perfect for people.

“It's designed for a certain number of people, and what those people are supposed to do is worship God. That's the point of Heaven, right? You follow God's laws perfectly in life, and you're granted access to the ultimate gated community. And what you get for being a good little worshiper, is an eternity of doing the same. You get to love God with all your heart, forever.

“With no distractions. None. You get a place to sleep, in a crowded barracks. You get a place to eat. And you get a seat in the big amphitheater. What's in the amphitheater? A walled garden, with God's throne in the center. You sit there, looking at the radiance of God, which is like staring into the sun, by the way, and sing his praises. That's what you do, in Heaven.”

Hes downed another shot.

“That was the idea, anyway. A long time ago. God designed heaven, sat down on his throne, and apparently hasn't moved since.

“So the angels run the place. Not all of them, most are off doing whatever the hell it is angels do. The angels of Heaven were made specifically to run Heaven, and their orders were real basic. Keep the monkeys housed , keep 'em fed, and, most importantly, keep the amphitheater full. Keep those hosannas coming.

“That's it.

“So you get to Heaven, you get your bunk, you get a seat in the chow hall, and another in the amphitheater. Then, you're on your own. The angels don't give a fuck about you, won't even notice you, unless they need you in the 'theater. And the 'theater? It's only built for one hundred and forty-four thousand souls.

“You have any idea how many people have made it into heaven, over the centuries? A damn sight more than one hundred and forty-four thousand, tell you that. Which means, you can land in the Holy City, get processed in, and never see another angel; never set foot in the 'theater. They send teams out to grab souls when the need asses in seats, but there's millions of souls around.

“And that, in a nutshell, is why Heaven is the worst slum you ever imagined. The angels keep expanding the housing, 'cause more souls keep coming in, and creating more chow halls, but that's it. There's nothing else in Heaven but five things: angels, souls, bunks, chow halls, and the amphitheater.

“No bars, or bookstores, or movies. No parks, no open spaces, no trees. Everything's made from stone that you can't chip or wear away. The sky is blank a couple shades lighter than the stone. The robes don't tear. There's nothing to read, nothing to see, nothing to do.

“It drives people crazy, all of them, in one way or another. People start doing terrible things to one another, just out of boredom. You can't kill, or maim anyone, but you can still hurt them. Some souls fight constantly, just to be doing something. Souls don't experience sex like a living body does, but there's a lot of fornication, consensual and non-. There are streams of people who just run, anywhere and everywhere, until the drop from exhaustion, and then get up and run some more. Holy men from all over fight about points of orthodoxy, first with words, then fists. Some others just sit in the same place, doing an saying nothing, some plead with God for answers, some pound there heads against walls over and over... Some do all of these, at different times. It's madness, and it never ends.

“Unless you find a way over the walls. Unless you cast yourself into the outer darkness, and fall. Hell is a balm to the soul, by comparison. Mostly because Satan seems to have given up on the whole game, and while He doesn't give a rat's ass about you, either, he doesn't set up any rules. Oh, you'll get punished in Hell, don't doubt it, but it'll more than likely be by other souls. It's easier to escape from, too. Everyone's so caught up in there own little things, see? Nobody's counting heads, 'cause no one cares.

“Which means, that if you keep traveling, you might just get somewhere you can finally get a goddamn drink...”

 Hes tapped the shot-glass on the bar again.