A Haunting Conversation

By David B. Corder

When I emerged from my coffin to stalk the darkness, I didn’t expect to find inspiration.

I strolled through a graveyard under a blanket of night. The gravestones glowed a ghostly gray luminescence under the gaze of the full moon, and shadows jittered with ghoulish glee as the boughs of trees swayed in a breeze.  I spotted a woman lingering under one of the trees. Her neck was pale and entrancing in the moonlight, and I licked my lips. Just a quick sip, and I’d continue my walk.

I was forward and debonaire—the best away to approach women. “What is your name?”

“Emily,” she said.

“Emily! What a pretty name.”

She cocked her head, looking me up and down. “Who are you?”

“Just your friendly neighborhood vampire, but you can call me Edgar.” As I stared at her lovely neck, it simmered like a mirage in summer heat, and through her I could see the tree in front of which she stood. I clucked my tongue. “Oh, drat,” I mumbled. “You’re just a ghost. I could really use a drink.”

“You like to drink do you?” She quirked an eyebrow.

“When the mood strikes me.”

Emily shook her head, her lips pulled into a grim smile. “Sorry to disappoint you, Monsieur Vampire. I have no blood to give you.” She stared at me. “You seem somewhat familiar. What was your occupation while you were alive?”

“I was a writer,” I said.

The moonlight caught her ghostly eyes, and they beamed like stars. “A writer? Well, that’s uncanny.”

“How so?”

“I was also a writer.”

“Were you now?”

She nodded. “A poetess, actually.”

I smiled. I hadn’t had a conversation with a fellow writer in ages. “I wrote some poetry in my time. Perhaps you could share some of your verse with me?”

“Of course. Here’s one of my favorites.” Emily recited a poem about Death’s carriage taking her on a ride through the countryside. When she finished, she recited verse about a funeral taking place in her brain. I was mesmerized, listening in wonder to each spoken word as if they were the notes of a majestic symphony.

When she finished, I applauded. “My, my, you have quite the skill. You could work a little on your diction, but otherwise, very grand.”

She smiled. “Would you share some of yours, Mr. Edgar?”

I bowed, my black hair flopping across my brow. “It would be my pleasure.” I orated with vigor a poem about a young lady being buried in a kingdom by the sea and then performed another about a raven visiting a lonely, pondering soul during a bleak December.

“I think I’ve heard that last one,” she said, her lips pursed, a far-away look in her eyes.

I grinned, flashing my fangs in the shadows. “I would hope so. It was my magnum opus. It was well-received by many critics.”

She sighed. “That must have been wonderful. I was never well-known for my writing while I was alive.”

“Oh, really? But your writing is so compelling.”

“You’re just saying that to flatter me.” She turned her head to stare at a black cat sitting on a headstone some yards away, grooming itself in the dark.

As I watched the feline, it reminded me of a story I had written where a man had murdered his wife and buried her inside a wall, along with their black cat.  “I am serious. You have a poet’s heart.”

Emily held up a translucent hand and gazed at it. “I have no such thing now. No heart, no brain, no lungs. And I cannot write. I have so many ideas from when I still breathed, but I am not able to pick up a pen. I am just mist and shadow.” She fixed her phantom eyes on me. “Do you write anymore?”

I bit my lip, shaking my head. “Living as a vampire has been a lonely business… and I have discovered that loneliness kills the imagination. When I was first given the choice to be a vampire, I thought it would be an opportunity for solitude, that I could write whatever I pleased… but the opposite has happened. I sympathize with your plight… for people like you and me, not being able to write is worse than being dead.”

“You have no one?” she asked gently.

“No one. Not even the one who turned me into a vampire is with me anymore. Got some holy water splashed on him. Made him go up in flames.” I gave a dark chuckle, then seeing the horror on her face, cleared my throat. “Sorry. Anyway, the only company I have is my own.”

Her hand moved as if she were about to place it on my shoulder, but she pulled it back to her side. It would have gone through me, I knew, but I appreciated the gesture.

I turned my attention back to the cat.  Its eyes burned like embers in the night. Suddenly, an idea came to me. It sparked within the deep recesses of my mind, in shadowy corners that had not been illuminated in fifty years. Ah! What a genius I was!  “Perhaps I could write for you? I will be your pen. Tell me what to write, and I will put it on paper.”

Her eyes brightened. “You would do that?”

“Certainly. I have an eternity to spare. How about you?”

She nodded. “An eternity writing… that’s a magnificent thought.”

I stroked my moustache. “Well, then let’s not waste any time.” I procured a small notebook from my pocket, unused for decades, and a fountain pen that I kept filled with fresh ink in case inspiration ever struck. I perched on a headstone. “What shall I write?”

She put a finger to her lips. “Start with, ‘Yellow embers in the dark, watching two dead hearts.’”

I scribbled. “I love where this is going.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David B. Corder loves to read and write all sorts of stories, though he has found that he has a certain talent for tales that deal with the dark and fantastical.  A middle school English teacher in South Carolina, he loves playing heavy metal on guitar or running a Dungeons and Dragons game with his nerdy friends.

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