Endless

My name is Clayton Cordell, or at least that is my name now, but I just go by Clay.

I was born in Munich, to a family of German nobility in the year 1226, during the ascension of the Holy Roman Empire. I had a highly privileged upbringing, replete with household servants, riding lessons, trips abroad, and I attended the finest schools in Europe. Still, I was never truly happy then. I am still not happy now. Happiness is a fleeting and elusive thing that I can never seem to hold onto for very long.

I was knighted at the feet of Frederick II in the year 1248 and I fought in many battles in many places. My men named me Prinz der Witwen (Prince of Widows) for my skill with the blade. I left many wives sleeping in cold beds and many children without their fathers. My own father was very proud of my achievements and my widely renowned military legacy. I felt much differently about the things that I had done by the time I retired my sword and spurs when I was thirty one years old following a battlefield injury that almost took my life. I returned home to Munich to convalesce and after five months I was back on my feet again, but I was no longer the same man. My days as a warrior had reached an end.

A few months after I regained my health a group of travelling performers - troubadours, minstrels, jugglers, storytellers and the like - came to our city and as I had been deprived of entertainment for quite a long time I decided to attend the performance one night. I enjoyed the merriment and a few steins of ale but on my way back home as I walked through the park I encountered a man standing beneath a tall tree and that’s when everything changed.

First I travelled to Belgrade. This was not easy, and I found no answers there despite the things that I was told. From Belgrade I was advised to visit Konopiste Castle in Prague, but again I found no answers. My quest then took me to Dubrovnik and Brasalouspurc and Plovdiv, but I found nothing but liars and pretenders and those seeking favor from my family. I grew increasingly frustrated and desperate and eventually I returned to Munich.

That morning after the night that I went to see the travelling performers, when the first rays of the sun came shining through my window and reached my forearm, I felt a burning sensation and smoke began to rise from my skin. It was excruciating and I still have a faint scar there. I had no idea what was happening to me but I instinctively scrambled out of bed to lock the door to my bed chambers and then I ran into my windowless dressing room and closed the door behind me. There I stayed for the remainder of the day. I was fortunate in that my family was spending some time in Berlin so no one came to check on me. When the servants knocked on the door I shouted to them that I was sick and needed some rest and asked them to please leave me.

I spent that whole day just trying to understand what had happened to me and what I would tell my family when they returned. I ultimately decided on a plan that involved a story about an eye condition that I had contracted that made the sunlight incredibly painful to bear, likely the result of a blow to my skull during battle.

Then I sought out discreet meetings with people who might have some true knowledge of the dark and the arcane. At that time I very much believed that there must be some way to shed my affliction and return to my normal life. No one I spoke with in Germany could offer any direct help but I was guided to others in Eastern Europe who might possess the knowledge that I sought. Thus began my fruitless nocturnal travels to the cities that I listed previously.

When I left the darkness of my dressing room once the sun had set on that first day I was filled with a savage and ravenous hunger, but I understood that it was not food that I craved.

That hunger. It’s always there within me, like a black hole in the universe that is all-consuming and must be fed constantly. It is my only commandment. It is my one true God. I must bow before its altar every night.

Upon their return my family accepted the fiction of my eye condition - I told them that while they were there in Berlin I visited a doctor in Vienna who confirmed that this is a known malady with no cure - and I remained in my dark bedroom during the daytime hours. But I eventually realized that I was showing no signs of aging. As the years passed I watched the subtle changes taking place in the faces of my parents and siblings but apparently I was frozen in time. I could no longer use a mirror but this abnormality was commented on several times and I knew that I could stay there no longer. I left one night and never saw my family again.

+++++++++++++++

Right now I am sitting in my apartment in the Gramercy Park neighborhood of Manhattan. I have acquired a good deal of wealth from various sources over the years and I am able to live quite comfortably. New York is a city that thrives by night and I find it conducive to my needs. People mostly mind their own business. Still, I have to move to a new neighborhood every 2-3 years to avoid suspicion and the security cameras that are mounted everywhere now are making predation increasingly difficult. But I still have my ways. Those COVID face masks made things really simple for a while.

I am just charging up my iPhone and waiting for a call from Rosalie, the beautiful young Latina from Puerto Rico who I met on Tinder last week. We are planning to meet up at some trendy and well-reviewed new bar that recently opened in the East Village. I don’t really care about such things myself but I know that it can be a good way to set the hook with women like Rosalie who are out there online shopping for a viable husband and a better life. I'm sure she will arrive dressed to the nines. I prefer Latinas. They have a fantastic sense of style.

I have to satiate the hunger and I prefer women when I do so. Men have a distinctly different taste that I find most unpleasant. Naturally I have had to resort to it on countless occasions over the years - I have resorted to dogs and cats when necessary - but I have found ways to avoid it entirely now. These are better days. Well, nights.

My phone rings.

“Hey, Baby! How you doing tonight? How did the meeting with your boss go today?”

Pause

“Oh, fuck yeah. Good for you! That’s great news. We have to celebrate. Do you still want to meet for drinks?”

Pause

“Cool. Does that new place Victoria down on Saint Mark’s still work for you?”

Pause

“Okay great. I can meet you there in about...an hour? Around seven o’clock?” (It’s early October and the sun fully sets here in New York shortly after 6:30 at this time of year.)

Pause

“Yeah, no worries. Just text me if you’re running late but otherwise I will get us a table. See you there. Should be fun.”

We hung up. I don't want to do this. I have to do this.

Some people want to live Forever. Maybe you are one, but I assure you that you do not want to live Forever. Forever is exhausting. Forever is haunting. Forever is a slave master or a fields overseer on a Mississippi plantation, whipping your back in a cotton field under the burning hot August sun. I despise Forever.

That's why I never turn my prey. I just finish them off and leave them wherever they are. It's better for them that way. It's merciful and maybe it even shows that I still have a thin shadow of my former humanity and grace somewhere within me, or perhaps just a faint memory of what it was once like to know such things. After all, I never asked for this.

But we all have to eat, don't we?

Next January will bring my eight hundredth birthday. Eight hundred years of torturous memories. Eight hundred years without sunlight. Eight hundred years of blood. Nothing ever changes for me. I am always and ever concerned with just one thing.

That hunger. It’s always there.

It's endless.

THE END