The God of Hell

1

There are moments in life when everything takes a turn for the worst. Who can predict these moments? Who can foresee them? No one does. That is what happened when he came. He came seemingly from nowhere, but no one comes from nowhere and he did come from somewhere. But the place from which he came, from which he was born, it was a place that was cursed, a place of darkness, a place called Hell, and he was its god.

2

I am from a small French town nestled close to a series of mountains. We were provincial in our ways, innocent and unsuspecting that our tranquil way of life could change. We were fools to think it could be any other way. I myself was naïve. I knew nothing of wickedness or evil. It would come to change.

3

My name is Adam Beaumont. I was born a long time ago, longer than you who are reading this can imagine. Yes, I am alive and the year is 2018. If you can call what I am alive. You may be wondering how is it that I still exist if I am so old? How is it that I still linger on this earth? That is the story that I am about to tell.

As you read this, you will probably be able to predict the outcome. But I couldn’t have predicted it, nor would anyone else had they lived through what I lived. It begs the question though; can anyone see how events will unfold? I didn’t. If I had perhaps I would have done things differently. Or perhaps not.

4

Forgive me for breaking apart the narrative as I am. My thoughts are a random jumble of impressions, moods, and feelings. I am writing about events I have tried to forget for over a century. In a few decades it will be close to two centuries, and by my calculations I will still be alive by that point. You wonder what I am. I won’t say it yet. Keep reading and you will know. You will know and you will be horrified and yet at the same time you will hate yourself for not knowing, as I hate myself, as I hate him, even though he has been dead all this time. He haunts me still, for he made me what I am.

5

I used to be happy. God how invincible I thought I was? I saw myself as untouchable. My parents were a happy couple and they raised me with my brothers and two sisters. We were a large family and happy. Oh how happy we were. How I used to love life, how bright and cheerful it was. We had a farm and I used to run through the fields with my siblings. And when it grew dark, our mother would call us and we would return to the warmth and safety of the hearth, a hearth that I never thought would go out.

Most of us are like that. We think what we have can never be taken. We take things for granted.

But as I write this, I am reminded of the humanity that was stolen from me. I was cursed and now I walk in the shadows. The devil himself has claimed my soul. There can be no redemption for me, no respite. Not after what I have done or after what I have become.

If my mother saw me now she would be horrified. My siblings would see me as a monster, for that is what I am. I am a monster and have done monstrous deeds. I cannot escape it. It is my fate.

But enough of fate and what I am. Let me tell you what I was. I was handsome. I still am as a matter of fact. Girls adored me, but there was one who adored me most of all and she became my wife. Her name was Clarissa. Clarissa my love, who I have done so much for, you are the most beautiful woman I have ever set eyes on, even after all these years you are still the fire in my heart, the fire that burns my soul with passion, it is you who keeps me going. My one saving grace is that she has lived with me all these years. But she is like me and has become a monster with me, all because of him, because he destroyed us and killed our happiness. But she is the only thing that keeps me from destroying myself, for I would rather be with her in hell, than not with her at all.

In a way it started with her. But was not because of her. She and I had no choice. We were not given a choice. I regret that. I curse it as I curse what we are.

6

When he came into our lives, she and I were engaged. I had known Clarissa as a child. We used to play together as all the children did. At the time I would never have imagined that I would fall in love with her. As children she was just a friend. It’s a strange sensation to see a girl from your childhood become a woman. But that is what happened to us and she saw me become a man, and when the truth revealed itself there was no turning back. And when he took her, I had to save her.

7

There was a castle near our town. It stood atop the mountain, overlooking us, like an ancient sentry. It was our god, overseeing us as if we were under its domain. It ruled over us and would come to decide our fates. For most of my childhood it was abandoned. And then he bought it.

He was an eccentric aristocrat. We didn’t know where he came from. All we new was that he was rich. His name was Michel Valcourt. He came in the summer and with his arrival came endless gossip. Everyone wanted to know who he was and what he was doing in our modest little community. The castle that he purchased had been so empty for so long that few could imagine why anyone would want to live there.

Indeed it was an imposing structure with nothing about it to indicate that it could be used as a home. The towers and turrets were adorned with menacing gargoyles that were forever frozen in stone. Some of the walls of the castle were crumbling and were infested with bats and rodents.

The grounds were ruinous with weeds covering almost every inch. And yet he bought it and not only that, he restored it. I remember the workmen coming into town, and how they promptly went to work and by autumn the castle was restored. The walls no longer crumbled. The bats were sent away and everything seemed to be in order.

Everyone in town couldn’t help but be impressed with his industriousness, myself included. After all the castle was once on the brink of collapse. Whoever this Valcourt was, we were dying to meet him.

But he remained hidden for months, never leaving the castle. What he was doing we had no idea, but one fact was certain, he came from an old family, one whose wealth and prestige extended into the deep past, most likely into the middle ages.

Clarissa was entranced by it. Sometimes I found her gazing at the castle. I am sure she wondered who he was, just like the rest of us. Her blonde hair tied back with a blue ribbon, she would let the wind blow her hair, not noticing it at all, as if she was lost in a trance, and then she would come out of it and ask me what I thought about the recent events surrounding the castle.

I had no words. I was just as lost as she by the strangeness of what was happening. The townspeople were if anything enthusiastic by our neighbor’s arrival, believing that he would provide financial help for the community. Which he did, he made his mark as a philanthropist, donating to the church, and to the town. He always sent messengers with these notices, keeping himself hidden and elusive, adding more to the mystery and the mystique of who this man was.

Now I know why he did it. He was seducing us, charming us with his dark arts, so that we would not be suspicious of him, so that we would trust him, and before we knew it, we would be doomed.

8

And then came the letters. They came in elegant envelopes, white and perfect. They were addressed by someone whose writing flourished across the paper, like a ballerina dancing across the stage. They were from him and they were invitations for everyone to attend a ball at his castle. Clarissa was beyond ecstatic. She had never been to anything like it. As her fiancée I would go with her. I had never seen her more exited about anything, nor have I have ever since.

It was winter. Snow covered the town. Christmas was on its way. When we arrived at the castle it was decorated as if it were a winter wonderland. Christmas trees dotted the grounds. Ice sculptures stood throughout the estate. Each sculpture was of a different creature. There were polar bears, penguins, and sculptures of angels throughout the castle. I had never seen anything like it, nor had anyone else.

What else were we to do but be seduced by this beauty and splendor? I ask you, would you have resisted? Probably not. People are essentially the same, then and now. Wealth is something few people can resist. And he knew this. Oh how he knew this and exploited it. He cultivated a romantic image of himself, straight out of a gothic novel. Or have gothic novels been written the way they have been because of people like him? I don’t know.

We felt like we were entering the home of a prince. And he was prince in his own right, but a prince of another kind, a kind that we could never have imagined.

There was an orchestra in the ballroom. They played every waltz imaginable and Clarissa looked more ravishing than ever before. She wore a white dress adorned with blue ribbons. I did my best by dressing in a set of tailcoats.

I felt out of place. I had never been somewhere like this. Intimidated I waltzed with her, waiting for him to make his appearance.

Eventually he did. Handsome with a pencil thin mustache, Valcourt wore black tailcoats, his black hair parted to the side.

“Thank you all for coming. As you know I have just arrived in your humble town. I am a stranger to you and I thank you for welcoming me. It has been my hope to make a new home here. For years I have longed for a quiet home such as this and now that I am here, I wonder how it is that it took me this long to find it. Now then, make yourselves at home. Never forget you are all welcome here.”

There was much applause when he finished. He seemed normal enough. Eccentric for sure, but I sensed nothing but good intentions from him. So did everyone else. No one thought for a moment that this man who had done such a kindness for us would turn out to be a monster. That was our tragedy and our undoing.

9

When we went home Clarissa would not stop talking about the night. I could see she was affected by it. I took her home and we kissed each other goodnight. That was the beginning of the end.

10

I don’t think it was an accident that she was the first. And by she, I mean the mayor’s daughter. Marianna was a pretty girl, if I recall correctly. Whilst Clarissa was blonde, Marianna was a brunette. She was tall with delicate features, her nose small. She was very mouse like in her demeanor. Two nights after the ball was when she went missing. The mayor’s butler and maid went to the girl’s bedroom to call her for breakfast. They got no answer. When that happened they opened the door and found her bed empty.

The window was left open. It was apparent she had left or someone took her.

There was blood on the sheets. Something violent must have happened. Inspectors came from the city and investigated. They found nothing.

Marianna was gone.

11

It ruined her father. Once a fine man, it sent him into a grief from which he never returned. She was all he had left. His wife died years earlier from consumption. With his daughter gone, he had nothing and then the man claimed that he had seen her, that she visited him. He was raving. He said she came into the night and that she was as white as a ghost, that her corpse had come to haunt him.

We thought he was losing his mind. Maybe he was. It was tragic to watch this man that had once been the most respected member of our town slowly degenerate. And the fear that was in his eyes, he looked like he had seen the devil.

12

But that was it. He had seen the devil. The devil does exist. He is in our heart and in our minds. He is outside us, living in the people who do wicked deeds on his behalf…

13

A few weeks passed and another woman went missing. This time it was the baker’s daughter. Now we could no longer deny it. It was a pattern and now all eyes turned to the castle and the mysterious Valcourt who had come before this started to happen.

14

As I write this, it strikes me how clichéd my story really is, how it has been told before. It should come as no surprise that Valcourt was the one responsible, but at the time we did not know, nor did we want to believe it. Fear and suspicion fell upon us, neighbor turned against neighbor and that was when the inevitable happened. My Clarissa, she was the third.

When she disappeared, I knew it was Valcourt. Her father came to me the morning after it happened. We looked everywhere for her. But like the others, there was no sign of her. All we had to go on were the bloody sheets left in her room. I feared the worst. I feared that she was dead. I was wrong though, she is with me now, but her disappearance has everything to do with what we are now and what we have become. Like I said, she and I didn’t have a choice. That was taken from us.

15

I knew what I had to do. I had to find her before she returned in the night as some specter intent on haunting me. Earlier, the baker fell to the same fate as the mayor. He like the mayor claimed that she would come in the night and every time it happened; he had two puncture wounds on his neck the following morning. It was clear what we were dealing with. Valcourt was without any doubt not human; he was something else. He was a vampire, and he was systematically trying to turn each and every one of us into his kind.

Looking back on it, we should’ve known what he was. I’m sure you’ve already guessed as much, and now you know that I am a vampire too. You like most people today are only too familiar with the stories that have been told of my kind.

My kind. How strange it is to call vampires my kind. I hate it. I despise it. I have lost my humanity and I mourn its loss every day and every hour that I am awake. And when I am not awake, my dreams are not dreams at all, but are nightmares; where I see the face of every person I have killed to sate my thirst.

The come to me. They accuse me. They torment me. They beat me with their fists. They have claws and they scratch me, tearing my flesh apart. I beg for their forgiveness but they do not listen. They only want revenge for the lives they lost, and I can do nothing to put their souls at ease or to silence their screams.

Valcourt was clever not to leave behind any bodies. He did it so that we would not know what he was at first. Had we seen the girls and their puncture wounds, we would’ve figured out what was happening much sooner than we did. But he knew better. He kidnapped them instead.

As for Clarissa’s father, Maurice, he was ready to hunt down Valcourt and to kill him. He already had a stake prepared as well as a bag of crucifixes and holy water. I was amazed to see how quickly this man took to superstition. Although we were a small town, we were not stuck in the middle ages. The enlightenment had come our way and we prided ourselves on our emerging modernism.

That too was something Valcourt must have counted on and used to his advantage. But when three women disappear and their family members all claim to have experienced the same visitations, one can no longer ignore it for what it is. It is something supernatural.

Maurice and I decided to attack during the day. It seemed the most prudent choice. After all we imagined that Valcourt and any other vampires that lived there to be asleep inside their coffins at this time. We did not count on the fact that Valcourt would have defenses prepared for us that would keep us from finding him, and that by the time we did, it would be too late.

Somehow he knew we would come. I don’t know how. Some vampires do have precognition and he was certainly old enough to have it. But I know very little about him. His secrets went with him.

We approached the castle. Somehow it seemed more foreboding than ever before. Once we knew what was inside, the castle took on a completely different meaning. It became a tomb to us; a crypt that contained all that was dead and nauseating in the world. I imagined all sorts of monsters living inside those walls, demons and devils throughout, and in my mind Valcourt was their god, a dark god, who ruled over all that was wicked in this vile and wretched world. He was the God of Hell.

And who is the god of hell, but the devil? But the title of devil or Satan was not fitting for him. He was something else entirely. But maybe he did come from Satan? I don’t know. I have wondered what we are, whether we are devils or something else, freaks of nature that have had too much lore and myth said about them.

Valcourt saw himself as the god of hell. He may not have said it in those words, but he was a prince of darkness, like the devil, but not the devil himself. I will never give him that level of authority or power.

A lock and chains tightly kept the gate closed to the outside world. Maurice and I could not open it. So I climbed the gate, taking care not to injure myself. When I reached the back of the gate I opened it.

Maurice joined me on the other side.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” I asked.

“Absolutely.”
I was glad to hear his resolve.

We approached the door. It was oak paneled and huge, its presence as imposing as the castle. It was unlocked. Valcourt was inviting us in.

The entrance hall was quiet and dark. There was not a sound to be heard.

The sun shined through the windows, casting an eerie glow upon the banister that led to the upper floors. I saw shadows everywhere, stretching across the floor. They were like spectral beings in their own right, ghosts of all who suffered at the hands of Valcourt.

I approached the stairs and nodded to Maurice. We would climb them.

Unlike what one would think about a castle that belongs to a vampire, this house was impeccably clean. Contrary to what the genre has established, most vampires prefer a clean and orderly home, shunning the grave. It is a human invention that vampires keep their homes like the tombs they come from. It has more to do with mankind’s impressions surrounding death and decay, how he associates them with vampiric lore. But the vampire is the one who has conquered the grave, should a vampire not be killed, he can conceivably live until the end of time, so he would prefer not to be reminded of that which he as escaped and also longs for. All vampires want to die, even though they may not admit it. To live on and on, to see humanity repeat the same mistakes over and again, to outlive everything, there is no greater agony than this in the whole world.

I have wondered if I will ever die, if this world will go on forever and will I be the last living thing left, if one can call me living. I shudder to think what my future will be. Perhaps that is when Clarissa and I will finally kill ourselves, putting an end to our misery.

Whatever the case, this castle was home to a being that had exquisite taste. I saw as much on the night of the ball. Tapestries hung throughout, sewn from the richest of fabrics. Suits of armor stood throughout, polished and gleaming.

There was a portrait. I saw it before on the night of the ball. I thought it was an ancestor, but it was actually Valcourt dressed in regalia from the fifteenth century, four hundred years before we invaded his castle. He wore a ruffled collar. A sword was clasped to his belt. But he had the same pale face and that devilish look in his eyes that I will never forget.

I feared that we would fail or that we had already failed, that Valcourt already had his way with Clarissa, whatever that entailed. Did vampires do more than must feed on their prey? I have since learned that some do. I imagined Valcourt torturing Clarissa, even raping her, forcing her to submit to whatever beastly desire he had.

I’m sure that Maurice had the same fears. But what we feared most of all was to find her already changed, to find her turned into a vampire. Would we be able to do what we had to do? I didn’t think so.

But we were not alone. We heard shuffling from behind us, footsteps from the stairs. Before we knew it, a pair of hands grabbed me from behind. Another grabbed Maurice. We both tried to fight them off, but they were too strong. Then one of them armed with a club knocked us both out.

16

We awoke in what were dungeons. Valcourt sat before us both.

“Well I didn’t imagine anyone could be this foolish,” he remarked.

“Where is she?” Maurice shouted.

“Now, don’t be so hasty,” Valcourt replied. “She’s safe and sound. Don’t you worry.”

The individuals who knocked us out were standing beside him. They were human, both brother and sister, and were in their sixties. The woman was severe in her appearance. She wore a tight bun and the man wore tailcoats and a vest, his long grey beard reaching to his waist.

“I see you met Heloise and Pierre,” said the vampire.

I remembered them from the ball. They both served as maid and butler to Valcourt and I had never heard them speak. They were mute.

Valcourt stepped closer to our cell. He sneered.

I wanted to kill him. All I could think of was my rage. And also I thought of Clarissa.

He ordered the siblings to open our cell. They did. He grabbed Maurice and dragged him away, and out of sight.

I knew from the sounds I heard in the distance that Maurice was dying, that Valcourt or someone else was draining him of his blood. Now it would be up to me.

All I needed was the slimmest chance to escape. If I died trying, I was fine with that. It would’ve been worse not to try at all.

Pierre opened my cell. I was next. But I was ready for him. I lunged forward, knocking him over and with my handcuffs I strangled him. When he was dead I took the keys from him and unlocked my chains.

I was free.

I was not worried about the woman. She and Pierre had taken us down because it was dark and we were not careful. But I’d be careful this time.

I crept quietly down the hallway. I opened the door that was in front of me and walked into a hallway that led upstairs. I climbed those stairs and there I found the woman. I did not have my stake on me, but I had a weapon. I kept my chains on me and with them I strangled her.

I had never killed before. But for Clarissa I would kill. I would willingly kill for her, over and over again, if I had to. But as for Valcourt, I didn’t know what I would do.

I found my bag with my weapons on a nearby table.

I had to be quick. I had to make haste. Anything could have happened by now.

I went into the entrance hall. The candles were lit. It was night.

Valcourt came from the stairs. His teeth were bared. With his fangs showing, he was no longer the polished and pomp gentlemen I was accustomed to. He became feral and animalistic. He came for me and reached for my neck. I held him off, but his strength was almost too much for me.

I had the stake in my hand. I pushed him against a wall. I rammed the stake inside his chest. It was iron and I had a hammer. I hammered him into the wall. He shrieked as I drove it deeper and deeper. The blood gushed from the wound and then as I drove it in more and more, he grew still.

I took a sword from a nearby suit of armor and cut off his head. I took the head into the nearby parlor room and tossed it into the fire. It went up in flames. The parlor room was magnificent. A coffee table stood by the fireplace and divans surrounded it. But all this I hoped would go down in flames, when everything was over.

I made a torch from firewood and set the body on fire, making sure Valcourt would never rise again. I wonder though, why was killing him so easy? He was a vampire. He should’ve been harder to destroy than he was, but now I wonder if in some way, he unconsciously wanted to die, that he invited me in so that I would kill him. In some way I was meant to carry on his curse. Whatever the case, I will never know.

After that I went upstairs onto the upper floor.

Red carpeting lined the path in front of me. There were paintings, some of people I did not recognize, but one was of a knight. I knew who it was. It was Valcourt, the foe I had brought down. Since killing him, I have done research into him and have discovered that he was born in the eleventh century, that he was a knight, and that he had fought in the crusades. It was during his time in Jerusalem that he was turned. The vampire that turned him; remains unknown.

I walked down the corridor. I heard weeping. I knew it was Clarissa. I ran towards it and found her in a bedroom on my right. The room was luxurious. A canopy bed stood beside her. On the floor she cried. Her face covered in blood. Lying beside her was Maurice. He was dead.

She shrieked when she saw me.

“No. Don’t come any closer! Leave me!” She cried.

I went to her. I would not leave her.

“I’m getting you out of here.”

“You don’t understand,” she said. “He turned me.”

My heart plummeted. She had been changed. She was a vampire. I looked inside my bag. There was a stake inside.

“He killed my father and made me drink from him,” she cried. She covered her face in horror.

I shook my head. “I won’t leave you.”

She inched away from me. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“I know you don’t,” I replied.

She was afraid she lacked control, but I could see that she had some control. She hadn’t attacked me yet. She had more control than she realized. She was still Clarissa. She may have changed, physically and biologically, but she was still my love and I knew right then and there, I would not be able to kill her.

“Turn me,” I said.

“What?”
“Make me into what you are.”

“No,” she shook her head. “Don’t you see what I’ve done? I’m an abomination. I don’t deserve to live. I won’t make you a monster.”

“Clarissa,” I answered. “I would rather be damned along with you, than to live the rest of my life without you. I can’t do it. I have to be with you, whether as a vampire or a human.”

She looked away from me. I grabbed her face, by her chin and made her look at me.

“Clarissa, please.”
She wept silently. I kissed her, not caring that her face was covered in blood or that she might kill me. It was then that she knew I was serious and that she could not live without me either.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“Positive.”

She nodded. “First I have to drink your blood. Valcourt explained to me how to do it. It’s going to hurt, but eventually the pain will go away. Are you ready?”

“I am.”

She inched closer to me. I exposed the left side of my neck to her. I saw her fangs inch forward. She bit me. It stung and then the sensation penetrated deep into my flesh. I cried out in what was a mixture of pain and pleasure. Strangely it was almost sexual, like my flesh and her flesh were becoming one. Then when my blood was almost drained, she bit into her wrist and forced her blood into my mouth. I felt it drip onto my lips. All it took she said was but one drop to start the change.

I tasted it. It was salty and revolting at first. And then once I swallowed it and the change began, the taste became like the sweetest nectar in my mouth and that was when I knew that I wanted more.

She let go of me. “Now it begins.”

I writhed as her blood coursed through my veins. The change was violent, like I was having a seizure. Minutes passed and then I knew it was over when the spasms subsided. I had become a vampire.

17

We left shortly after that. I set the castle on fire. We left town. We knew we couldn’t stay and so we have lived a life of wandering. Ever since then she has been my wife, although we were never formally married. But when she turned me that was like a marriage ceremony and it has kept us bound to each other ever since.

My point in telling this story is to make it known that we are not all monsters, but neither should we be romanticized, even though what I have done is romanticize myself in writing this account. I never wanted this and neither did she. It is lonely to be what we are, to live day after day, year after year, and to know there is no respite from our existence.

We live on, wanting to die, wishing for death. But it never comes. For such is our fate. For such is our curse.