Cuento de Mi Id

“To Taste the Flesh Not Yet Deceased”

(I normally don't comment on the stories I post here because I prefer any comments made about them to come from the people who read this blog. But this story is one of the first ones I ever showed to other people and I wrote it for a college creative writing course. Hopefully it should be apparent that my writing skills have improved since then -- even if it is not by much.)

They say there are no more demons, yet I know better. I sit here with my AK-47 and my batch of silver bullets awaiting the biggest demon of them all. The Trinity protects me; the black-and-yellow symbols of Saints Albert, Robert, and Enrico have been hung at every entrance. Yet I know he’ll get in. He always does.

They have made it unlawful for civilians to possess the only substance that will stop him; they even say it does not exist. However, it does not matter.

My wife looks at me as if I’m crazy.

“John,” she says. “No such thing exists.”

I know better, of course. God help me, I know better.

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Demons did not always stalk our world. They first came out after the bombs fell. The government did not want to acknowledge this. When a little girl was saved from a food riot, when a notorious black marketer was found bound and gagged by unknown assailants, they blamed it on coincidence. The clerics wished to credit it to divine intervention, but the Old God was not popular anymore since they bombed the Vatican, so they didn’t. A few spoke of making a pilgrimage to Paris, to pay a visit to the shrine of Saint Marie, who still lay unburied in a lead-lined chamber after two centuries. But the government discouraged such visits. Travel was not considered a good idea for anyone not under armed escort, and there were not enough soldiers to go around, so guess who stayed home.

Rumors arose, however. Hades was sighted, thundering across the now empty highways in a black horseless chariot. Hera appeared, too, now attired in a costume apparently fashioned from a flag of the old Republic. Satan finally appeared, as the pessimists among us had guessed he would. There was no doubt he was Satan for he wore a big red “S” on his chest and everyone knew that letter could only stand for “Satan.” He wore a blue suit, a red cape and had the Aryan features of a German warlord. He also had a pearly grin which could only be borne by a man to whom radiation and fallout meant nothing.

My wife and children insisted upon joining the cult of this new-found deity while I still clung to the old faith.

“Father,” my daughter Lois would say, “don’t you realize the Old God doesn’t exist anymore.”

“Of course, He does,” I answered. “There is only one God and I am His Prophet.”

My words were in vain though for my wife and children continued to attend prayer meetings dedicated to the new God and pore over copies of the ancient chronicles of his life and works. I once confiscated one of these sacred scrolls and tossed it upon the fire, only to find another one in its place the next day.

Then one day I looked up in the sky and I saw Him -- Satan -- as big as life. At first, I thought it was an illusion, yet after I had blinked, He was still there.

It was then that I realized that I was in the grip of forces much greater than myself. The citizens of the post-war U.S.S.A. (United Socialist States of America) had hungered for a miracle worker so badly that they had created one out of their own minds. It was too late to fight this creature with mere disbelief; the gestalt forces which had given it life were much too strong now. The only way to deal with it was on its own terms.

So I studied the ancient scrolls and I devised a way to lure it to its doom. I have already set out a sacrificial victim -- a virgin, I hope -- and now I merely await the arrival of the Grand Adversary Himself. I have heard him referred to as the Man of Steel, but the bullets in my gun are Teflon-coated and can pierce three feet of steel. It will be a grand contest I think -- as grand as the one that is said to occur when the Great King Jayefkay rises from his tomb to do battle once more with the Demon-King Kastrow.

My daughter says I’m foolish and I think she hates the ropes, but after all, I’m doing this merely for her sake but for the sake of all humanity.

There is only one God that I worship; one who has risen from the dead and promises eternal life to all His followers.

I speak, of course, of the one true Lord -- Dracula.