Vampire Moon

I have my reasons.

Will you ever tell me what they are?

Someday.

But not on here.

Exactly, he wrote. Not on here.

If not on here, then where? I asked.

That’s the million dollar question.

I changed subjects. So what am I supposed to do about Danny?

Another long pause. I often wondered what Fang did during these long pauses. Was he going to the bathroom? Answering his cell phone? Sitting back and lacing his fingers behind his head as he thought about what he would write next?

Finally, after perhaps five minutes, his words appeared in the IM box: Danny has all the leverage.

I thought about that. Indeed, it had been something that occurred to me earlier, but I wanted to see what Fang had up his sleeve.

Keep going, I wrote.

Maybe it’s time for you to take back the leverage.

I agree. Any idea how?

Something will come to you. Hey, how psychic are you these days, Moon Dance?

More than I was a few years ago. Why?

Some psychics use automatic writing for answers.

What automatic writing?

It’s when you sit quietly with a piece of paper and a pen and you ask questions. Sometimes answers come through and your pen just…starts writing.

I laughed.

You’re kidding.

No, I’m not. It could be a way for you to find answers, Moon Dance.

Answers to what?

Everything.

I thought about that, and a small feeling stirred in my solar plexus.

So how do I do this?

Research it on the internet.

Okay, I will.

Good. And let me know how it goes. ‘Night, Moon Dance.

‘Night, Fang.

Chapter Ten

I did research it on the internet.

Normally, I would have scoffed at such nonsense (automatic writing? C’mon!), but my very strange existence alone suggested that I should at least consider it.

And I liked the possibilities. Who wouldn’t want spiritual answers, especially someone with my condition?

According to a few sites I checked out on the internet, the process of automatic writing seemed fairly simple. Sit quietly at a table with a pen and paper. Center yourself. Clear your mind. Hold the pen lightly over the paper…and see what comes out.

Then again, maybe I didn’t want to know what might come out. Maybe I needed to keep whatever was in me bottled up.

With some trepidation, I found a spiral notebook and a pen. I switched off my laptop and slipped it back in its case.

It was just me, the table, a pen, and a pad of paper.

I stared at the pen. When I grew tired of staring at the pen, I cracked my neck and my knuckles. In the hallway outside my door, I heard two voices steadily growing louder as a couple approached in the direction of my door. The couple came and went, and now their voices grew fainter and fainter.

I picked up the pen.

A domed light hung from the ceiling directly above the table. The light flickered briefly. It had never flickered before. I frowned. One of the sites I had read mentioned that when spirits were present, lights flickered.

It did so again, and again. And now the light actually flickered off, and then on. And then off. Over and over it did this.

I sat back, gasping.

"Sweet Jesus," I said.

More flickering. On and off.

Nothing else in my room was flickering. The light near the front door held strong. So did the light coming in under my front door. It was just this light, directly above me.

And then the light went apeshit. On and off so fast that I could have been having an epileptic seizure.

"Stop!" I suddenly shouted. "I get it. I’ll do it."

I brought the pen over to the pad of paper, and the flickering stopped. The light blazed on, cheerily, as if nothing had happened at all.

Okay, that settles it, I thought. I really am going crazy.

I set the tip of the pen lightly down on the lined paper. I closed my eyes. Centered myself, whatever that meant. I did my best to do what the article on the internet said. Imagine an invisible silver cord stretching down from each ankle all the way to the center of the earth. Then imagine the cord tied tightly to the biggest rocks I could imagine. Then imagine another such cord tied to the end of my spine, attached to another such rock in the center of the earth.

Grounding myself.

I briefly imagined these silver cords stretching down through nine hotel floors, plunging through beds and scaring the hell out of the occupants below me.

I chuckled. Sorry folks. Just centering myself.

When I thought I was about as centered as I could be, I realized I didn’t know what to do next. Maybe I didn’t have to do anything. It was called automatic writing for a reason, right?

I looked at the pen in front of me. The tip rested unmovingly on the empty page. The lights above me had quit flickering. No doubt a power surge of some sort.

Maybe I should quit thinking?

But how does one quit thinking? I didn’t know, but I tried to think of nothing, and found myself thinking of everything. This was harder than it looked.

One of the articles said that focusing on breathing was a great way to unclutter thoughts. But what if someone didn’t need to breathe? The article wasn’t very vampire friendly.

Still, I forced myself to breathe in and out, focusing on the air as it passed over my lips and down the back of my throat. I focused on all the components that were necessary to draw air in and expel it out.

I thought of my children and the image of me strangling Danny came powerfully into my thoughts.

I shook my head and focused on breathing.

In and out. Over my lips and down my throat. Filling my lungs, and then being expelled again.

And that’s when I noticed something very, very interesting. I noticed a slight twitching in my forearms.

I opened my eyes.

The twitching had turned into something more than twitching. My arm was spasming. The feeling wasn’t uncomfortable, though. Almost as if I were receiving a gentle massage that somehow was stimulating my muscles. A gentle shock therapy.

I watched my arm curiously.

Interestingly, with each jerk of my muscles, the point of the pen moved as well, making small little squiggly lines on the page. Meaningless lines. Nothing more than chicken scratches.

My arm quit jerking, and I had a very, very strange sense that something had settled into it, somehow. Something had melded with my arm.

The chicken scratches stopped. Everything stopped.

There was a pause.

And then my arm tingled again and my muscles sort of jerked to life and I watched, utterly fascinated, as the pen in front of me, held by own hand, began making weird circles.

Circle after circle after circle. Big circles. Little circles. Tight, hard circles. Loose, light circles. Sloppy circles, perfect circles.

Quickly, the circles filled the entire page. When there wasn’t much room left at all, my hand grew quiet.