By the time you get this letter, I will be gone. I know that your first reaction will be to come looking for me, or to try and get me to return to Harper Rock. Normally I would have spoken to you before moving forward with my plan to leave, but I doubt my own ability to be convincing. You see, I want to go for all of the wrong reasons. I have to get out of Canada because the rest of the world is so huge, and I’ve only ever seen a tiny part of it. I know that I’m not done adjusting to this new life you have given me, and I expect to have some questions along the way. You can reach me at the following e-mail (moriartycomplex00@gmail.com).
I know you will not be pleased to find this letter, but I hope that you understand. I have this new chance at existence, and want to experience…everything. I won’t be gone for long. Maybe just a year or two while I take the time to enjoy everything I have missed out on. I understand if you’re angry with me, but I promise that I will be okay.
You are right. I was not happy to find your letter, nor to understand the implications.
It is not I who should be in contact with you. You are too new for this. If you die outside this city you can never come back. I am certain that I told you this, but if I didn't, I am telling you now. Whatever allowed vampires to come back is connected to this city, and this city alone. There will be no security blanket for you out there.
I am not telling you that you cannot travel, but it is too soon. Please let me know when you get this. I want you to come back. I'm not angry. I'm concerned. How am I supposed to be able to help you when you're so far away?
It’s been a week since I left, and the world is such a huge place. Of course, I can only travel by night, which somewhat limits my movements, but I have a pretty decent supply of cash on hand which has certainly helped things along. I guess now would be the time to admit that I did something not so honest. You see. Well wait. Let me set the scene a little. I was watching this special about men in prison, and there was this one guy who would jack wallets from people, a regular modern day pick pocket. He’d make small purchases at convenience stores around town and ask for small sums of cash back. Nobody ever thought to check his identification, so he would make twenty dollars on top of whatever cash he found in the wallet at the time. So he might get twenty a day, make a good five hundred dollars a day on a couple of hours work.
Anyway. I figured that I’m dead, so it’s not like I can be convicted for a crime. Oh right. I forgot to mention that. My parents finally had a funeral for me. It was in the paper. I guess the official story is that I went missing and they think I just disappeared to live out my final days alone. So I thought I might do something similar to what that one guy did, only on a bigger scale. And…well I targeted some less than savory people. Only I didn’t so much pickpocket them as stab a few street dealers and take their cash, burn their drugs.
Long story short, I wouldn’t be shocked if the cops are on the lookout for someone matching my description. Which is part of why I figured now would be a good time to take a trip. Give myself a little time to let Harper Rock cool down a bit. I managed to pick up about two hundred and fifty thousand dollars though, and that’s what’s currently funding my trip.
Am I terrible?
And…I’m sorry. I really am. I know that if I die out here, away from the city, that I won’t come back. But I lived my entire life afraid of stepping outside of the normal and scared of taking risks. Being what I am now, I have to make it worth it. I have to live like I might not have a tomorrow.
Forgive me? I couldn’t bear thinking I’ve let you down. I think it would physically hurt me if I did. I think just knowing you are there, that we can talk does a lot more for me than you know. I do have a question or two as it is. I recently noticed when I was walking through a garden that the plants around me began to slowly shrivel up and die. I was standing there in the middle of a grassy field and under my feet, the green began to become gray and yellow, black and crumbly with death. It spread around me slowly, growing larger and larger until I finally fled onto concrete. I avoid plants now. Is that…normal?
I’m sorry it took me a while to get back to you. It took me some time to process what you admitted to me.
I know that we are predators now, for lack of a better word. I know that we have strength and ability beyond what any human could hope for. It will be easy for you to think that you are no longer human. That you can act outside of the law, now, because the law no longer applies. Perhaps man-made law has a slippery grip upon you now, but there’s always a law of morals. Of ethics. Those men you killed might not have been doing a good thing, but good and evil isn’t black and white. They might have been scum, but they might also have had wives and children, and the potential to change.
We are not gods. We cannot judge who should live and who should die. Please try to hold on to your humanity, wherever you are. Please don’t succumb to greed. I have plenty of money at my disposal. Savings, from honest endeavours. I have businesses. If you need any more money, please just ask me and we’ll organise to have some transferred to you.
As for the plants – that is not normal. It is not something that I have encountered. But we are all different in the blessings and curses that the vampiric blood gives to us. I do not know why plants should have an aversion specifically to you, but yes – it is best that you try to stay away from them. I am sorry – I can ask around, I can do some research. We can see if there’s something that can be done about it. I couldn’t imagine not being able to walk through nature without killing everything around me.
I mean you are right. I do not know what came over me. I think when I return home from my time away, I will try to look into the families of the men I killed. If they have wives or children, I will do my best to try and make it up to them. I am a resourceful young man, so I will find a way. But it makes me even more upset that I disappointed you. I stayed in for the whole of three days after receiving your last e-mail and even that does not really feel like enough. I promise that I will not become a monster. I will do my best to be the good man you have always known me to be.
In other news; I no longer have to feed.
Every evening when I wake up, I simply heal my own blood using the necromancy that appears to come naturally to me. I find that I like it a lot this way. It means that I do not have to spend time hunting down any prey, which I think means that I end up drawing less attention to myself. The way I figure it, if I keep up the way I have been, I should be able to just sustain myself long term, so really there is not a whole lot of danger of my attracting the attention of hunters or other potential threats. I can also hide myself in the earth. It is a little hard to explain. But I seem to be able to make the earth move around me and just bury myself deep. It lets me avoid the sunlight in a pinch, at the very least?
How have you been? I feel selfish having not asked before.
Thank you for looking into the matter of the plants for me.
It both fascinates and terrifies me that you are more worried about how you might have disappointed me. What you do from here on out shouldn’t be for my benefit – but of course you know this, otherwise you would have come back when I had asked you to. Do not make yourself a good man just because it’s what I expected you to be. No, maybe that’s not the right way to phrase it.
I cannot claim to know you very well, Whitaker. You were a student in my class who I knew better than the others, but there is still so much that I do not know about you. But my first impressions, the instinct that I had in regards to yourself, was that you are an honourable, good man. Stay that way, if that is indeed what you were, but do not do it for me. Do it for yourself – because will you be able to live with yourself if you become that monster in the street, tearing the throat from an innocent because you cannot control yourself? I think only of your future, and the regrets that you might gain if you do not take care.
I am glad to hear about your new ability. It is not one that I myself am capable of; I am slightly envious of it. I cannot stand the sight of blood, even though the taste of it is addictive to me. My mind always seems torn as to whether it wants to run from blood or devour all of it. I have it delivered nightly in a Styrofoam cup, through which I cannot see the contents. I make sure to drink it before I go out, so as to resist any kind of temptation.
The research that I have done in regards to the effect you have on plant-life isn’t entirely conclusive, but there have been other recorded cases. It seems to be something not adherent to your specific path, but a random ‘curse’, as you will. I am sorry that it is one that has befallen you.
As to my own well-being – as good as it can be, I suppose. There’s been a problem with a specific family member, which seems to have caused my OCD to become worse than it has been for a very long time. I am lucky to have Jersey, though I do expect her to walk out on me any day now. I cannot be easy to live with. But this isn’t a new concern for me, so don’t concern yourself on my behalf.
How long has it even been since I last talked to you? I don’t really know and I’m sorry for that. It feels like it’s been months, so surely it’s been weeks? So much has happened, so much I have to tell you about. First the good, I guess. You see, I have been all over Europe, and parts of Asia. I have walked the Great Wall, seen the Pyramids. I’ve visited a modern opium den in the heart of Paris, and seen just…everything. I’ve seen everything I ever wanted to.
And then some
See that’s the problem. I was at a famous battlefield cemetery in the UK when I began to see things. It was night, of course, and I was seated on a gravestone. There was nobody else there, or so I thought. I heard the first of them as a kind of wet squelch. I didn’t realize. I…am getting ahead of myself. I was shocked to find that I was not alone, and went to go find the source of the noise. What I found was a man with his back turned to me. His clothing was not from this era, and I thought he must have been one of those people who insists on wearing period garb wherever he goes. Not my lifestyle, but I’m not the sort of man who can judge.
I went to tap his shoulder, and my hand slipped right through him!
Then he turned around and I saw he didn’t look right at all. Half his face was missing and it gave me quite the fright. But he wasn’t alone. There were dozens of them in the graveyard. Spirits. I saw spirits, Peter! And it was like in my noticing their presence, they took note of mine. Now I can’t seem to escape them. Everywhere I go, I find one or more of them, and they always seem to want to gather close to me. I don’t want to hear their whisperings.
I don’t want to hear about their terrible lives or grisly deaths.
I don’t want to see them. Everywhere. Always.
I close my eyes to sleep and they invade my dreams.
I’m being punished aren’t I? For being a terrible person. It’s my punishment for hurting people and not caring.
I…I’m sorry. Here I am going on about me and you have your own things going on. What has been happening with that family member? Is there anything I can do to aid you from afar?
I'm really worried about you. I know I'm not the poster child for keeping up with you, but you've never made me wait a terribly long time for an e-mail.
If you don't respond in a week, I will be returning to Harper Rock to find out what's going on.
