Memories and Vampyrs: Redux

By Charles Justus Garard

The woman that you met on the beach many years ago was not human. Not only has she been in your life for decades, but you learned that vampyrs can actually have doppelgangers or double-walkers.

Are they both a threat to you, or is it possible that one of them may not be an enemy?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Charles Justus Garard
• Release date: Nov 6, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201895358

Book preview

Chapter One

Vampyrs in the Realm

~

Seda was a dark shadow against the night sky. Only her cheek was faintly illuminated by a dim bonfire further down the beach.  She had high cheekbones and in the smothering dark, she looked almost skeletal. Everybody becomes ill, Judd.

Her voice sounded far away, but her East European accent was still evident.

I know. Judd Denning sat up in the sand. But not the way I was.

You mean mentally?

Right. I can’t get the military hospital out of my head.

She shrugged. So?

The Navy doctors wanted me to draw a picture of someone – myself or someone I admired. I drew a picture of the actor Christopher Lee as Count Dracula.

Why did you draw that?

Judd shook his head. I guess that is where my head was at. Later, I was embarrassed when I realized that medical officers would be looking at it.

Seda touched Judd’s upward arched leg with one of her breasts loosely contained in the one-piece swimming suit. She leaned over him. Her black hair swept against the blond hairs on his chest.

Judd looked nervously toward the bonfire. The surfers sat huddled around the glowing embers; their outstretched forms were barely visible on the sand.

They aren’t worried about us, she said calmly.

Maybe not.

You ever go out with any of those beach cuties?

No.

She looked awe struck. Really? Do you like it here in Ocean Beach?

So far. Haven’t seen much of it yet.

C’mon....

No. Really. I haven’t even seen much of California.

You’re out here because of the Navy.

Yes. I said that. I grew up in my little hometown back in Illinois.

Oh. Near Chicago?

He shook his head. A small town on the Mississippi River called Waterside. He described for her his mental map of the area with northeast Missouri butting against the southeast tip of Iowa. After they sat in silence for more than a minute, he told her about his petite girlfriend Flory. When my girlfriend discovered that she was pregnant, she informed my father. My father, in turn, made me join the Navy.

Seda listened to the waves in the dark. Glad he did, she said.

This jolted him. What?

Wouldn’t have met you otherwise.

***

Seda rescued me from a mundane, crawling-like-a-cockroach existence in Ocean Beach, Judd said.

Miranda Godwin paused from making notes. And that was it?

He shook his head. "After Seda exited the stage, I came into the crosshairs of an under-aged Jewish princess named Leanna who acquired my name from the owner of the magazine store where I worked. Her mother, when she learned that her daughter was shacking-up with one of the beach goyim, frightened me with enough threats that I caught a ride back to the Midwest with an acquaintance who was going to cross-country it on his own."

The therapist moved an armchair next to her desk and invited Judd to sit there. She smiled faintly as he did so. But you never saw her again.

No. Leanna finally met someone else and got pregnant. She said in a long-distance phone call that she was going to use my name, but that didn’t go as she wanted.

I wouldn’t think so.

That was about the time I stopped getting the calls from her.

And the other lady? Miranda asked.

Seda. Occasionally, I will get an e-mail from her. We just compare our lives – discuss marriages and divorces, et cetera.

Is that what brings you back into therapy, Judd?

Miranda was an attractive brunette in her upper thirties. Judd tried not to look at her thigh as exposed by the slit in her black dress.

Not just her, he said. A couple of signs suggested that I might not be as healthy as I thought I was.

Like what?

Sometimes I will start crying when I am alone. Sometimes a word will trigger it. I think about Jacky before she broke it off between us, I think about love, and something will start boiling up. My nose will feel very. . .acidic, as I call it. Tears come out of nowhere. And I don’t know why.

I see. Thinking about your ex-wife makes perfect sense.

Good.

But you’re now here in Carbondale, and Jacky is up in Central Illinois.

West-Central, he corrected. He tapped his temple. "Now . . . she’s up here."

Okay. Miranda exhaled, exhausted. But your e-mail hinted at something more . . . threatening.

Yes. Preternatural, you mean? Paranormal?

She nodded. Something along those lines. I’m not sure of the exact terms you used. . ..

Here, Judd said.

Miranda nodded and picked up the audiotape that Judd extended to her. She read the label. You recorded these notes?

Yes.

~

"One evening, Jacky, my wife, showed me the bookkeeping duties of the night auditor at the Hyatt Lodge in case a position became available. My trepidations involved the handling of money (particularly the counting back of change to a waiting customer) and any dealings with the public or with money. Jacky knew this and thought that I would never take the job. She was right.

"I took a portable tape recorder down to the lodge with us that night. Jacky’s friend Lacey Morgansturm was there, as was a new lodge resident, Carlos Menendez, who had attracted the attention of not only Lacey but my wife. My intentions were to learn more about the job, but, instead, I became engaged in a long conversation with Lacey about the recurring appearance of what she called a demonic shadow with hypnotic eyes. She hastened to add that she did not mean Carlos.

"Jacky said that she knows that it only exists in Lacey’s mind but doesn’t understand what it means. Once in our kitchen, Lacey said she felt an icy coldness on her back and saw this thing rising behind Jacky’s chair. Lacey said it mocked her by using the name of a friend of hers – Lucia.

"Lucia was the name of a student who had, reportedly, run off with another community college student named Jake.

"Lacey’s nightmares (or fantasies) still exist; I believe that I understand much of her fears and feelings. She resented her own mother for not knowing the exact hour of her birth and, in addition, not caring that she didn’t know. Feeling unloved by her mother, Jacky thinks, is her excuse for being mixed up and contradictory. She is changeable, illogical, emotional, and frightened. Instead of understanding her at the outset, I was critical. I made jokes about Lucia, the disappearing student.

Anyway, Halloween night at the Hyatt Lodge was somewhat enjoyable. Lacey and Jacky spent the evening chiding Carlos about the girls calling his room from long distance. He, of course, likes the attention. When Jacky talks about him at home, she pretty much reveals herself. *

~

*Judd Denning’s voice notes

Belle-Valley, Illinois

~

***

"Jacky went shopping with Carlos a couple of weeks prior to Halloween. He was still staying at the Hyatt Lodge, and I knew that they continued chatting with each other since Jacky continued to work the night shift. She denies being attracted to him, but her facial expressions and her actions suggest otherwise.

"Lacey visited us on the night before Halloween. She claimed again that she saw her ‘shadow demon’ and ignored Jacky’s attempts to calm her