The Enemy

The vampire limped down the stairs, keeping himself upright by clutching the new railing the workers had put in. The ugly, utilitarian scaffolding, necessitated by lawyers and fear, wobbled uneasily, but he was grateful for it now. He made a mental note to, if he survived the day, bring in some real craftsmen to put something elegant in its place—something a bit more secure and, he hoped, better befitting his ancient homestead.

Down the spiral steps he came. Outside, the sun was rising, and light was beginning to stream in through the still broken roof of his tower. He could almost feel its burning rays on him now, ready to singe his skin and dry up his bones to ash. Then, as he came round the last turn, his heart longing for the darkness of his crypt, he found there waiting in the shadows the old, smiling sinner with his curling goatee and twisted grin.

Not a word was shared between them. They understood each other far too well now. Ready in his hand, the enemy held up the crucifix and began his ascent. The vampire stopped and snarled. Weak though he was, he tried to pull himself over the railing and jump down, but before he could get the charred remnants of his leg over the rattling steel, the old man was there, bearing that image, that inescapable horror, that God of life and death, of suffering and passion, that incomprehensible crisscrossing of contradictions that was a man’s dying and living and love.

With a wail of despair, he retreated back up the steps. Following him, his enemy, gradually, carefully, matched his movement, not gaining, but pushing, driving the vampire up again and again.

And as they wound their way toward heaven, small beams of light, streaming down upon them, would burn and sizzle against his undead form. The scaffold shook as the vampire reeled in pain. Silent and smiling, the enemy drove him upward, upward, and upward again. Round and round the tower, deeper into the light; slowly, his skin falling away like dust, the vampire withered into a corpse, a skeleton, a shadow…then he was gone.

The enemy sighed when he saw his work was done, and, climbing up the last few steps, opened the hatch to let himself up onto the roof. The morning air, fresh, flowed over him, and there he watched the sun finish its ascent over the distant hills as weariness and sleep slowly closed his tired eyes.