The Addiction

2004

“My name is Edmund Wright, and I am an alcoholic.”
As I stood there, addressing the members of the support group, it suddenly struck me how absurd those words sounded. You go to a meeting of an organisation known as ‘Alcoholics Anonymous’, and the first thing you do is to give them your name. Where’s the anonymity? I suppose you could make up a name, no-one would question it, but it is still a label and thus you are not entirely anonymous.
It didn’t really matter to me anyway, I gave my real name, so I wasn’t anonymous, but then I wasn’t really an alcoholic either.
I have a kind of addiction, that much is true, but there are no support groups for my problem, nor are there ever likely to be – it’s not really a problem most people are aware of, let alone accepting of. This was the nearest I would ever get. I looked around the small hall where we met, and imagined everyone replaced by my kind. It amused me to imagine a group of individuals like me huddled together, hugging and congratulating each other on how they had been clean for six months now.
Six months was how long I had been dry and that earned me a round of applause when I told the group. Six months is a long time for an alcoholic to stay dry, for me it had seemed an eternity. It’s odd, for someone of my age to consider six months an eternity, but getting over my problem has been a monumental challenge. A challenge I would not have considered were it not for Ellen.
Ah, Ellen! My inspiration, my love, my saviour. Just picturing her sweet face heartens my soul. Yes, my soul! The soul I once gave up has been returned to me, through Ellen’s love. I am aware of how corny this sounds, but it is entirely true.
When she and I first met, I was a foul, soulless creature, with no morals, caring for nothing and no-one. I was full of evil and, at first, I tried to subvert her, to change her into what I was. Her will was extraordinary and she resisted my every effort to turn her. Eventually, she ended up turning me instead.
She recognised my love for her immediately, or was it simply lust then? It’s hard to say, but whatever it was, she saw it and quickly realised that I would have done anything to have her.
Then she told me that she would kill herself rather than be turned into what I was. I believed her, I had to. The change wouldn’t happen instantaneously, she could well have had enough time to end her life should she have chosen to do so. I couldn’t run that risk, the risk that she would be lost to me forever and, worse, it would be my fault.
Then she announced her intention to cure me, to rid me of the evil, of the addiction, to turn me back to the man I once was. I scorned her, telling her it had never been done and never could be done. She was adamant.
So, to humour her, I let her lock me into a room from which even I would be unable to escape. I was not sure if I would ever leave that room. At the time I thought, like most, that it was more than an addiction, that I actually relied on it for life.
A fortnight later, during which I consumed only normal food and drink once again, Ellen let me out. I was a wreck. She gently nursed me back to health and, as she did so, I slowly felt the evil leaching away, to be replaced by the soul I had thought irretrievably lost.
What came next was as bad as the withdrawal, maybe worse. The guilt. With the evil gone, I had to come to terms with what I had done, all of that evil I had committed over the decades. All of those people, all of that suffering, because of me.
Ellen is helping me through that too. She tells me that I cannot be held accountable for acts committed while under the influence of such a pervasive evil, that it wasn’t really me that did those things, it was the soulless husk of a man.

I am not sure I believe her.

1892

I gave a quick twitch of the reins and the horses responded immediately, turning up through the gates of the Harper Estate in Chelsea, the carriage rattling along after them.
Driving for the Harper family was a good job and I was well provided for. I had my own room in the servant quarters, three hot meals a day and a reasonable wage packet at the end of every week. But I was getting restless,
I wanted adventure, excitement, something a bit less run of the mill than driving a carriage every day. I dreamt sometimes of fleeing to America. I had heard tales of the exploits of cowboys, gunfights at high noon, fighting Indians and so on. How I longed to leave the dreary weather of London, and make a new, thrilling life out west.
But it would remain a dream. Comfortable though I was on my wage, I could never afford the fair to America. So I was doomed to a dreary life of dull, repetitive mediocrity, or so I thought, until I met Natasha.
I met her quite by accident late one evening and immediately decided that she was the most beautiful woman I had ever laid eyes upon. She had an exotic, Mediterranean look - dark hair, deep, brown eyes and flawless olive skin. Her accent, when she spoke, backed up that lineage, Spanish or Italian, I have always had trouble discerning the difference.
I was thinking of Natasha that night as I pulled the carriage up to the front door of the old house that the Harpers, and I, called home. Natasha had asked me if I liked to dance. I was entranced and mumbled an affirmative reply, somewhat overawed that such a beautiful creature as this would deign even to speak to me. She told me to meet her later on that night. I felt like I was in one of my dreams of adventure. Natasha seemed to be the kind of woman who could bring me the excitement I sought. Or the trouble I didn’t. I was right on one count anyway.
I met her outside the rear gates of the Harper Estate. I was half expecting her to not turn up, for this all to be some cruel joke at my expense, but show up she did, looking even more radiant than before. We drank and danced the night away, into the small hours of the morning. Then she took me back to the hotel room she was staying in.
We made love on the large, lavish bed in her expensive suite and again I marvelled at how a woman like this could show any interest in a man like me. Then, at the height of our passion, came the bite.
Somehow it didn’t seem strange at all, her sinking her abnormally long teeth into my neck, and greedily drinking in my blood. It was no more out of the ordinary when she nicked her finger with a short blade and offered it to me to drink. Drink I did, until suddenly, fatigue overcame me and I collapsed back onto her bed.
When I awoke the next day, I was alone. The previous night was a bit of a blur, and I was feeling the effects of the alcohol I had drunk. I pulled myself out of bed and threw back the heavy curtains to let in the sunlight.
The pain was extraordinary. Every inch of my skin seemed to be on fire. I fell, screaming, back onto the bed, my entire body racked with a terrible agony, until a shrouded figure burst through the door and pulled the curtains shut again.
The shroud fell away and Natasha stood there.
“That is not for you any more” was all she said, before disappearing back into the siting area of the suite.
The pain was subsiding now, but I still had no answers as to where it had come from, or why it disappeared when Natasha closed the curtains. Nor did I have any idea what was ‘not for me any more’. Then I raised my fingers to where Natasha had bitten me the night before. There were two welts, just over an inch apart, over my jugular vein.
A thought crept into my head. No, surely that was impossible? Such things existed only in horror stories or old folk tales, didn’t they?
As it turns out, of course, such things can and do exist outside of stories. I had been turned into living proof of this.
I fled from Natasha, and from London, that very night. She tried to tell me that what she had done to me was a gift, that I had to understand the benefits of what I now was. I didn’t listen to her, I couldn’t. I knew such things were evil, that she had cursed me with this thing. Then it got worse.
The cravings began. The desperate hunger, the longing need for blood, human blood. As my soul began to depart my body, for that is what happened, I found I needed the essence of others to sustain me. The first time, there was still enough of the old me left for it to repulse me, and I immediately vomited and had to feed again. As the evil took over, however, it got easier and easier, and soon it was as much a part of my life as brushing my teeth. My now elongated teeth.
Later, I tried to find Natasha again, to let her know that I had realised that she had indeed bestowed a great gift upon me. I had discovered, through meetings with others like me, that many of the myths surrounding us are indeed true, although some are old wives tales. We are stronger than the average man, quite a bit stronger actually and, although not quite immortal, we do have a life span considerably longer than most people. We do have reflections, of course, even we can’t get around the laws of physics. The sunlight thing, as I found out to my displeasure, is true. Ellen tells me that this is some sort of hypersensitivity to the UV rays. Garlic is as harmless to us as it is to the next person, although it does give me a bit of wind. Oh, and a wooden stake through the heart will kill me just as dead as the next person.
Although I searched long and hard for Natasha, I would never see her again. I eventually discovered that she had been killed. Although we live long lives, when allowed to, there are those who have devoted their lives to destroying us. One of these people had got to Natasha before I had.
After that, and for nearly 150 years, I roamed the planet, having the adventures I had always dreamed about. Until I met Ellen, and everything changed.

The Present

So, what next? What does the future hold for a reformed vampire? I’ve been thinking long and hard about how I can repay my debt to mankind. About how I can make up for all the people who I have killed over the years.
Thanks to Ellen, I have realised that the need for blood is really nothing more than a craving, a symptom of the disease I contracted from Natasha. I don’t need to take lives, I don’t need to drink blood. I just want to. But no more.
I have retained the strength and the longevity, along with the aversion to sunlight. So whatever I do, it will have to be done after dark.
My thoughts keep straying to a TV show I’ve seen a few times about a vampire cursed with a soul and the guilt of what he has done. To alleviate his guilt, he fights against the evil creatures that most believe are fiction such as vampires, demons and the like. Actually, most of them are fiction, but more than you might think are real. Every now and then I have these romantic ideas of fighting the good fight, as he does, fighting for what is right and protecting the innocent.
Unfortunately, the real world isn’t like that. There is one of me and many of them. I wouldn’t stand a chance. Among humans, I am powerful and able to easily defeat even the strongest, but there are many vampires far stronger than I.
Perhaps I should give it a try anyway, throw my life away in a futile gesture saying ‘look at me, see how good I am’. A noble sacrifice, or a foolish waste? I would be inclined towards the latter.
I have thought also of turning myself in to the authorities. I have committed a lot of crimes in my time, murder, torture, rape. You name it, I’ve probably done it. I could wipe out a substantial proportion of London’s unsolved crimes at a stroke.
But is this not just another futile gesture? It may be, but certainly less so than throwing myself to a certain death. I could offer myself up as proof of the existence of the paranormal, allow experiments for the good of mankind to be performed on my body to give a better understanding of how we vampires are the way we are.
But again, I feel this would, ultimately, be in vain. For one thing, I suspect the powers that be already know about such things as vampires. The people that killed Natasha seemed a little too organised and well funded to be amateurs. I have seen other evidence of governments being behind similar hunts, all around the world.
Besides which, this being the government, they’d only mess it up. Arguments over whose jurisdiction it would be, which department should get to do the examination and so on.
I remember speaking once to one of those I called friends in the old days. He was speaking about the relative roles of Good and Evil in the world. He argued that Good and Evil were essentially the same thing, each seeking the eradication of the other. He said that, like Evil, Good sought to fight against the enemy it had made in Evil. He spoke as if they were two nation states arguing over a common border, a dispute that has been going for so long that no-one is able to remember who started it, or who is in the right.
At the time I believed him. I had chosen my side, or had it thrust upon me at any rate, and I was quite willing to believe any argument that agreed with that choice.
Now I can see the fundamental difference between Good and Evil. Good does it’s fighting as a result of the actions of it’s enemy. An evil creature, such as I was, will pre-emptively strike against those weaker than itself, no matter how innocent they are. A good creature on the other hand, will merely retaliate against threats to itself or against those dear to it.
So this has to be what I do with my life from now on. I must take my inspiration from that which is Good, and retaliate against evil in the world. But haven’t I just stated that I am unable to do anything against such forces? That emulating the TV character would, ultimately, be a futile gesture?
Yes, but not all evil things are stronger than me. There are many men out there, normal men, who thieve, rape, abuse, assault, and commit all manner of other crimes. These I can do something about.
In fact, I already have. There is currently a man sitting in the local police station, giving dubious stories about a man moving faster than a speeding bullet, wresting the gun from his hands and bending it in half. The man is wanted for several armed robberies and for questioning in relation to a shooting that left one man dead and another on life support.
Oh, and for the record, no I didn’t move faster than a speeding bullet, the man simply had tectonically slow reactions.
So this was the course I chose to follow, this is how I intended to repay my enormous debt to society. But it seems it hasn’t been enough. Some people simply cannot forgive. I can’t say I blame them; it is difficult, if not impossible, for them to believe that someone with my history can change.
They have the house surrounded now and it is surely only a matter of time now until they break in. Ellen, bless her, is downstairs, attempting to persuade them that she has changed me, that I am now capable of acts of good, but I doubt very much that it will do any good.
And so I leave this document, my final words, as a sort of testimony, proof – if they are believed – of my change, of what Ellen did for me. I hope that someone will read these words and see that removing evil is not such a forlorn hope, it can be done.
From the sounds I can hear from downstairs, they have broken in and I have but moments to convey this, my final wish, if I am deserving of such a thing. I merely ask that anyone reading this at least takes the time to consider the possibility of it’s veracity. That is all I ask, that you consider it and come to your own conclusions without leaping to them.

Thank you and goodbye

Edmund Wright