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Midnight Rendezvous
Author: Raymond Towers
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Midnight Rendezvous
Midnight rendezvous in an empty graveyard,
where although the climate is well tempered,
frequent chills course my body,
with each and every step I take.
I’ve placed myself in no minor peril,
by coming to this most unholy site,
to mingle among the darkest shadows,
and the ghosts of the dead.
Yet risk my being I must,
for so great is my longing,
for the one who has taken such a strong hold,
and captivated my heart.
There are watchers among the tombstones,
keeping their distance at the moment,
yet ready to pounce like cobras,
should the opportuniy be allowed.
Into the cemetary, I plunge deeper,
ignoring those that would do me harm,
for eventually I do discover her,
below the barren branches of a dying tree.
She is leaning against its trunk,
her head turned away from me,
and in her hand holds a single black rose,
which is as dead as everything else here.
Ignoring my presence, she sways with the breeze,
but I have come too far a distance,
and risked so great a stake,
that I defiantly refuse to be denied.
Summoning my strength, I pin her against the tree,
and in the waning and spotty moonlight,
witness the traces of warm blood on her lips,
that betray her recent feeding.
For my jealous ardor has been aroused,
at the thought of her embrace with another,
and I utter a curse with envious words,
that the blood should have been my own.
And she knows this all too well,
as she easily throws me onto the grass,
discarding beside her the dark cloak that she wears,
and teasingly mounting me with her seductive form.
Her fierce claws rip away at my clothing,
unforgiving as they graze against my soft skin,
until we are no longer restricted from one another,
and our bodies meet in the darkest of embraces.
For a brief time, the two of us are in union,
the soft moans from the lips of lovers,
that carry through the air and over the graves,
inviting nearer those who sulk among tombs.
But in these moments of passion and climax
my only thoughts are gathered towards this being,
whose body trembles and shudders above mine,
while our hands are gripped together.
And then her weak collapse,
brings her mouth dangerously close to my throat,
and the sharp needles that are her curse,
bring the taste of death into my blood.
As before, I am torn in the midst of two worlds,
the one, to preserve the security of carnal existence,
the other, to succumb to the intoxicating fumes of the afterlife,
until my thoughts fade away into the black night.
And when I awaken, cold and pale and naked,
with countless new scars that I must account for,
searching for the cloak that might have been left behind,
and grasping at explanations for my absence,
Yet all the while looking past these mundane trivialities,
and further ahead towards my next midnight rendezvous.
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Midnight Rendezvous II
Author: Raymond Towers
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Midnight Rendezvous II
Demon ears, calloused and gnarled, twitch,
intently listening to my plodding footfalls
as they rustle leaves and snap through twigs,
announcing my entry into their dark domain.
How many times, I did proceed to wonder,
had my lost brother traversed this very path?
Obscured as it was by the dreadful fall of night,
and the rising, chilly mist from the nearby swamps.
The soft beat from leathery wings kept pace with me,
and through the dim and lonely moonlight,
my eyes gazed upon numerous, nameless headstones.
But who, in their sane mind, would choose this place for burial?
With a slight clearing of fog there appeared before me
one of the more daring of the many pursuing devils.
It was a miniature buddha, its skin sickly and green,
its limbs short and thick, much like that of an infant.
We were at an impasse, this grinning ghoul and I,
its wide open mouth revealling both rotten and serrated teeth.
I pulled forth my sword from its hidden scabbard under my cloak,
and with a single, powerful slash, rent the shocked specter in two.
Crouching defensively, I awaited the assault from the horde of evil,
but instead of the nightmarish charge I was expecting,
I was instead met by a symphony of unnerving howls and cackles,
laughter from the dozens of goblins concealled among the trees.
Pressing on further into the woods, I left this madness behind,
coming a few moments later to a makeshift gallows.
Upon inspecting the handful of dangling corpses,
with some relief, I discovered none of these were my brother’s.
Recanting a silent prayer for the dead, I abandoned the gallows,
carefully trodding, ever deeper into the greedy clutches of the woods,
where the branches reached out with their twisted, barren fingers,
and the night eagerly tried to swallow me in her gloomy mouth.
I stepped into a dark clearing, trespassed only feebly by moonlight,
where I observed, among the dead foliage and remnants of spider web,
several clusters of those damned black roses favored by my brother,
and in their midst, the pair of starcrossed lovers that I sought.
Kneeling among the black blooms was the she-devil seductress,
who, at my approach, raised her head to reveal sad and distraught eyes.
Resting against her bosom was a dead and dessicated form,
clothed in attire that I recognized as belonging to my brother.
Tears of lamentation broke through the steel of my resolve,
the sudden flood of anguish and pain sinking me onto one knee.
For a bitter moment, I stared into my kin’s shrivelled and lifeless face,
and into the listless visage of the vampire that had become his undoing.
As I returned to my feet, and with the gentleness of a mother,
the vampire slowly lowered my brother’s body to the comfort of the roses
and in one graceful motion the wretched lady arose to her feet,
without neither fear nor care for the sword I held in my grasp.
Menacing growls and rumbles began to emanate from all around,
as her demonic legion awaited her command to come forth and slay.
But incredibly, instead of unleashing her awaiting hordes of minions,
she instead turned to dismiss them with a mere wave of her arm.
Then, she lingered in silence, this solemn causer of death,
until finally, she stepped around the still form of my slain sibling,
and walked directly underneath a lone ray of moonlight,
where I was at last able to clearly gaze into her countenance.
She was strikingly beautiful, precisely as my brother’s diary described,
with her hair long and black and cascading down to her slender midriff.
Her eyes, gazing into mine, were cold and penetrating like daggers,
and her lips as dark as the image of death she had become.
As I tightened the grip of my sword, she reached slowly to her middle,
unclasping the single loop of coarse thread which held her robe,
then shunning it from her lean shoulders until it dropped to her feet,
and reluctantly, suspiciously, my eyes ran the length of her body.
The vampire’s skin radiated a milky white in the bask of moonlight,
the single ray illuminating the supple roundness of her breasts,
followed a few inches below by the soft protrusion of her growing belly,
to ultimately cast a silvery sheen on the slenderness of her legs.
Searching upwards and into her eyes, I could only discover regret,
regret at having become enamored of a mortal, my unfortunate brother,
regret at having taken his life in order to break that love,
and regret at the impossibility of carrying her unborn child to full term.
Heavy tears of resignation sprung forth from those sorrowful eyes,
and in a summon of strength I lifted my sword to deliver the killing blow.
Fully expectant, the vampire made no attempt to prevent her own demise.
and remained still as the tip of my blade pierced the depths of her heart.
Gasping for forgiveness, the she-devil slid from my sword and to the ground,
but as I dragged her body next to that of my brother’s, I had none for her.
For one final time, the two ill-fated lovers were again side by side,
I thought, as I reached into a pocket for the crucifix I’d brought along.
Lodging the object deep within her chest, I set about in a search for twigs,
and although these were to be found in abundance in all directions,
it nevertheless took my dejected self a considerable amount of time
before I could produce enough embers for the resulting funeral pyre.
Tossing dried leaves and broken branches onto the leaping flames,
only a single creature of the night dared oppose my unholy actions.
It was a tiny gremlin, composed mostly of matted hair and discolored teeth,
with thin and bony limbs, and black, curved claws on both hands and feet.
With a great deal of morbid curiousity, I stared at the small creature,
holding it at bay with slight pressure from the bottom of one boot,
even as it gnashed its sharp fangs and tore away at the thick sole
fervently crying and thrashing for its now deceased mother.
This then, was the resulting offspring of mortal man and immortal woman,
I contemplated, finally skewering the struggling hellion with the sword,
then lifting its small, impaled body into the eagerly lapping flames,
where it hideously writhed and screeched itself into oblivion
My revenge exacted, I quietly abandoned the accursed patch of hell,
hoping the fire would spread and destroy the entire Godforsaken land,
where the formerly fierce ghouls and goblins now stayed at a far distance,
from he who had entered their domain in order slay them.
It was not until the advent of morning, after my own shock had subsided,
after I’d burned my tainted clothing and taken a bath in near scalding water,
that I was finally at peace, and allowed myself to further mourn over
the grievious and injurious loss of my beloved only brother.
Then, my thoughts once again did begin to settle,
on the accursed devil that he’d taken as his lover,
and on the frightening hellspawn that might have been his son,
before I rid the gruesome matter from my mind, forever.
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