Hadrian's Wall (21 page)

I clicked the mouse and the page
changed.

Lamia... Where had I heard
that name before? The text said that Zeus fell in love with her
beauty and the result... well, she became pregnant. It happens that
the jealousy of Hera, the wife of the
Don
Juan
that Zeus pretended to be, ceaselessly
persecuted the poor woman. Lamia was cursed by
Hera
and forced to drink the blood of
her son, or something (to drink the blood of the children of
others, perhaps...). Promiscuity and tragedy ran amuck in the Greek
pantheon. Zeus was really a bastard! I’d read about some of his
amorous adventures. If I was in Hera’s place, I would have divorced
him and had Olympus to myself. Why play the role of the unloved
vixen?
I guess because Zeus was very
powerful and he loved to act like a macho man.
What chance would poor Hera have had against him? Thus, the
only fun she had was exacting revenge against his lovers—behind his
back, of course. Well, if they’d had TV back then, I bet she
wouldn’t have wasted her time because she would have been
watching
Desperate
Housewives
.

I clicked the mouse and another page
appeared.

“Although there was
evidence of the existence of evil beings in previous reports from
other ancient cultures,
myths
of Morrigan, Lilith and Lamia could be
(...)
two of the most elaborate—maybe the
first sophisticated attempt of the ancients to demonstrate the
extent of the powers of darkness. Respectively, each one
representing a specific and complex facet of the evil, that would
be aggregated to the modern profile of the creatures of darkness in
general and the vampire in particular: the bad being as strong,
powerful being—like an avenging angel; the bad being as poor, weak
or downtrodden being, and sometimes, a suffered being (felled by a
tragedy that transformed the creature); the bad being a
malicious and unscrupulous being that does
perverse acts for its own pleasure and to corrupt innocent people.
Are all of these familiar to us? We’re talking about demons,
ghosts, and vampires
(...) who, in several
ancient citations, make up only part of the mythical
representation: the
dark
gods
.”

Oh, I see. They were monsters...like “three
in one.”

(...) “The
Chaldeans
of
Euphrates
,
for example, they recorded the passage of such
creatures.
(...)
In
the rest of
Mesopotamia
, other people have done so—such as the
Assyrians
and the
Babylonians
more than 3000 years
B.C.”
(...)
Wow!
So old? I thought it had all
started with Bram Stoker.

“The
Sumerians
called the vampires
of
Ekimmu
and
Uruku
.
The first were not exactly vampires—the traditions most often
painted them as vengeful spirits brought by the gusts of wind.
Ekimmu were individuals barred at the door of paradise after death.
So they returned to the land because their death was tragic and
premature, or because their burial wasn’t done appropriately. To
humiliate the human, the Ekimmu entertained themselves by
psychologically harassing the weakest people as the spirits that
were
possessors
and/or
obsessors
(names that would come much later, in the Middle
Ages).

Contrary to the
Ekimmu,
the
Uruku
vampires would be
legitimate because they would physically attack, feeding themselves
on the blood of the victim until death.”

Look how nice! No, not the
death of victim, for God’s sake!
I mean,
little did I know!
“But there are
references to vampires in
The Thousand and
One Nights
- called
Ghoul
- and other Arab narratives as
well. Even today, in certain regions of the
Middle East
, the belief in these
creatures is a matter of horror to the people.

In
Malaysia
, the natives still fear some
beings that are very different from the traditional view we have of
vampires: the floating heads of the
Penanggalan
; the sufferers and
dubiously domesticated
Langsuir
; and finally, the
Pontianak
, which for some
authors were the stillborn children of women transformed into
Langsuir, on equal footing with their mothers. The Pontianak take
the form of a huge owl.”
See? The owl
again!
To other authors, however, the
Pontianak were nothing more than the women who died in childbirth
and became very similar to vampires Langsuir own.”
Oh, what a mess!

I decided to jump to
another link. What now? “What did the Japanese and the Malaysian
vampires have in common?
Oh, I see.
“Both the
Nukekubi
and the Penanggalan are not dead creatures. They
are living people, flesh and blood by day, behaving like any human
being. But at night, they separate from their sleeping body and
float up to their victims,
devouring
t
hem like a lion would a gazelle...
Crunch!

Direct from the Far East to
the west’s cold countries... “The
Drauger
was the most famous vampire
of
Norse
mythology, the type of undead who roamed the catacombs near
his burial site because he was always restless after he died.”
Perhaps, as in the case of Ekimmu, the Drauger guy has been kicked
out of paradise, so he wandered around, pestering the living —a
couple of real pains in the neck.

The tradition described the drauger as a
huge figure, with great physical strength and spectacular powers,
such as predicting the future, controlling the weather, changing
shape, passing through solid walls ... a pest, but with a
fluttering cape like Superman.

And the
Dance of Vampires
around the world
did not stop there...
No sir!

“From
Nepalese
tradition appears the
mysterious
Lord of
Death
, who drank blood from bowls made of
human skulls. From the Indians emerged the legend of
poisonous
Rakshasas
(known as destroyers). They walked in gangs and hunted
newborns. From
Africa
, in turn, the creatures with “
teeth
of iron”
and the
Chinese
had their
Xiang Shi
.”

What do you know? I thought vampires didn’t
exist in those cultures.

According to authors, in
almost every country, including the
Americas
, there was some record of
such creatures. However,
Europe
, was at the top of the list as
the largest “reservoir” of legends about vampires I’ve ever seen.
Some from the
British
Isles
, others from
Germany
, but most of them came
from
Eastern Europe
. The list was enormous.

Some legends are repeated;
others didn’t make sense. The rituals to exorcise the creatures
were definitely
disgusting
! Most of these vampires
were too weird to really scare someone. They’d make good characters
in Ed Wood movies! Incredibly, Europe endured an intense wave of
vampire terror during the eighteenth century. In many rural
communities, the subject of “vampires” was treated as a serious
matter.

I clicked on the mouse, looking for more
information. This was fascinating to me.

Lycaon... the figure of werewolf and vampire
appear associated in various descriptions. Some authors claimed
that in earlier times the two were part of the same myth.

I don’t
understand
. That meant...first, the dark
god became a demon, who later would become a vampire, which, in
turn, would become a supernatural wolf? Or...
doesn’t the order of factors affect the product?
When exactly did the four creatures become
distinct things?
Mmm
... It was like the evolution of the species, like from the
monkey to man.

But we must not forget the big, fat bat!
When did the vampire become a bat? Some links indicated that the
connection between them was made because of an Indian mythical
monster—a giant bat that would have existed in India. Maybe the
ancients watched the bats feeding off the blood of animals and made
the connection?

Yeah, but...and
then?
When the vampire became a Mothman? I
was totally confused, as if someone had tied a knot in my brain. My
winged monster was or was not a representation of a vampire? No,
absolutely not!

Besides, I haven’t enjoyed
the stories of vampires.
Never!
I considered them disgusting, depressing. Not even
Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt could convince me otherwise.

Vampires. There was nothing remotely
charming about them—one exception being Edward Cullen, of course.
Well...

I ran my eyes over the text
and links to find a very disturbing excerpt: (...)
“
Lilith preferred to attack pregnant women,
using the form of an owl. In several cultures, some gods and other
mythological beings also took the form of this enigmatic bird. The
sages knew of their impending arrival by the sound of wings echoing
in the distance”
(...)

Like me and my flying
monster.
Uh oh!
I’d better get back to the werewolf, it’s safer for my
sanity.

Lycaon would have been a
great, but terrible king, transformed by Zeus into a bloodthirsty
wolf with yellow eyes.
Yellow eyes!
And everything because the blabbermouth mocked the
authority of the supreme god of Olympus—in public, no less! You
know, gossip is faster than satellite transmission. Zeus was
furious when he learned, but decided to do nothing until he heard
it with his own ears. Fair enough from him, I have to admit. So he
went there in disguise, ready to catch the disastrous words of the
king. Sure enough! After all, the king with the inflated ego was
talking to whoever would listen. Zeus turned him into a big dog!
(...) “
So Zeus ordered that all who were
bitten by the beast and survived would become as he was—a
wolf.”
(...) Hence arose the
expression—“cursed sons of Lycaon.”

Even with the “thing” of owl, bat, and
wolf... so the entire zoo, which for me was not sufficient for a
minimally rational explanation, I came to wonder, what do vampires,
demons, and werewolves have to do with my dreams and
hallucinations?

* * *

I looked at the screen without seeing. My
head felt hollow, as if I had lost the energy needed to make
decisions. After a while, I had sufficiently recovered so that I
could organize my ideas and make plans for immediate actions.

On impulse, I went online
again and typed “orphanage, Dailey’s Crossing.” No search results
appeared—no mention whatsoever. I froze.
Calm down, girl!
It should be there
somewhere.
Dailey’s Crossing was such a
small place that it didn’t even warrant a dot on the map, so why
should I expect there to be anything about it on Google?

I located a site with some
of Groveton’s government offices and found the phone number of the
Town Hall. I pulled the phone over to the computer desk and dialed
direct. The person who answered the call confirmed that the
orphanage still exists and gave me the number. I heaved a sigh of
relief. At least I had not invented that place.
Great.

I punched the numbers on the phone’s keypad
and waited.

“Hello?”

“Is this the orphanage in Dailey’s
Crossing?”

“Yes, may I help you?”

“I want to talk to the director,
please.”

“I am the director.”

“Oh, well...I don’t know if you remember me,
Mrs. Winfield. This is Melissa Baker. I was one of your
children.”

Silence.

“Mrs. Winfield?”

“Mrs. Winfield died about a month ago.”

What?

“Director Janet Winfield died? How?”

“She was in a terrible car accident.”

“Wow! I’m sorry...” I nervously ran my
fingers through my hair. “Is the orphanage still functioning
normally?”

“Yes, the county continued to maintain it
until the congregation invited me to come.”

“Can I talk to Mrs. Jones?”

“Who?”

“Linda Jones.”

There’s no one here by that name.”

“How can that be? She was Director
Winfield’s secretary.”

“She must have left before I assumed this
position.”

The woman was getting impatient. She
probably had a lot of things to do and I was keeping her from her
work.

Since I had no other alternative, I decided
to get straight to the point. “Listen, I need to ask a favor of
you, please. Can you verify my record? I was a resident of the
institution until I was 18 years old.”