Author Glenn James
Gothic-Fantasy Writer Glenn James was haunted by a question: What would it be like if one vampire haunted another vampire? Out of this premise developed the conflict between his characters Skaler and Prince Germane, and the whole cycle of his Gosmanger stories, which are meeting with an excellent response: (“Pass the Remote” was published in The Eerie Digest earlier this year.) “Hungry George approaches the world of his vampires from a rather different angle and throws a revealing light on the shadowed Prince Germane….
“You never see Hungry George; you can just feel him feeding. It’s just one of those things, like an uncommon certainty that it’s going to rain, or that someone whom you know has died. One can simply just tell he has someone over for dinner….
On very rare occasions you can hear a bit of a struggle, but never for very long, and whatever is going on stays discretely behind that cracked and blistered door. Occasionally there are black dustbin liners, taken discretely away by a fellow from the dog food company, and they always seem to have shall we say a certain weight and organic volume, but questions are never asked.
Hungry George must be absolutely ravenous, because these bags of his table leavings are voluminous, and collected rather regularly.
He has lived at the end of the corridor in that pokey little flat for seven years, and all you ever see of him is the back of his head and a long tweed overcoat with the collar turned up at the back of his neck. All you ever see is a lift door closing behind him, or George closing his own door with his back to you. I have never seen his hands, and what can be seen of his hair is lank, wiry and wild. It does not inspire confidence, or affection, and one is not disposed to shout after him and begin an acquaintance. Actually most people find his appearance disquieting and scary. This is an impression he is disposed to cultivate.
Most people haven’t heard of George yet, but I don’t think it will be long now before he makes a media splash of some significance. He has been remarkably quick in his application and his approach to his art, and in truth he does seem to have been planning this side of things for some time. We shall have to let things mature and see how it develops, but I think we can expect great things from George, in fact when his history is written I think he might well prove to be one of the greats indeed.
Suffice to say his approach is wholly unique, and rather original. I have been very pleasantly surprised, and I feel certain that he will have his admirers and his fair share of imitators. One really has to do what one can to pass on these old skills, particularly when one finds a promising new exponent.
George has such an original avenue of approach. I feel it will cause no end of embarrassment to the powers that be, once his predations are exposed. No end of guilt, too, I shouldn’t wonder, and a colossal degree of embarrassment to the police. I should think his more flamboyant culinary excesses will cause an outrageous degree of scandal, particularly since he is apparently compiling a cookbook, whose menus call for ingredients sadly lacking in the average delicatessen. When this is bought to light the outrage will explode with all the forces of a blitzkrieg, and I imagine it might reignite the public demand for the reinstigation of the death penalty. A refreshing return to honest form, in my opinion, and so by inches, gentlemen, do we further our cause.
Who would have thought of preying on the community of illegal immigrants resident in the vicinity, by promising to stand as a passport referee? And they pay him, too, if such things interest you, before he puts them out of their misery and adds then to the larder. Such ingenious economy, very neat and tidy. Such subtle genius. No-one can truly trace these lost souls once they disappear, as they are of course not on the official records, and their own people cannot report the matter for fear of exposure and deportation. He really has got them coming and going.
It truly is a brilliant attack on the herd; I was quite amused when George broached it. This is an old method, of course, but his approach presents the victim with wholly new problems and vulnerabilities. George has taken a tried and tested method and made it quite his own, and it is proving as fresh as summer rain. Quite innovative, I was almost impressed, and you know, gentlemen, that I have a reputation for only awarding praise where it is truly merited.
In the due course of time, one would almost consider delivering the killing bite, as he is more than worthy to be let loose as one of the Born. You know, a lust for blood in itself would sharpen his already heightened cannibalistic tendencies, and make him a considerable figure of fear amongst the Herd. They do so love to panic.
I really am quite pleased with his development. You know how much care I devote to my hobby gentlemen, and how much thought and selection I have devoted to this pursuit in the last two millennia. One never quite knows how these things will turn out, but I have had some notable successes, and some of my psychopaths have risen to dizzying heights in what passes for human civilisation. Need I mention Robespierre, or Matthew Hopkins? The Wiermarch were particularly successful. I know you are well acquainted with my handy work. What would human civilisation be without its periodic serial killers? They really ought to thank me for adding a little splash of colour to their mundane lives, and the victims of my protégés achieve a kind of immortality in their own right….. It isn’t much to sacrifice, surely….
Oh really, please… Don’t applaud. It’s what we should be doing, out there walking the wider world. To be one of the Born is to immerse oneself creatively in blood, not skulk around this city for centuries, doing nothing with ones immortality. The spreading of fear, the reduction of the human race to its proper subservient status should be our objective. It’s a passion, really, an enthusiasm. Some would say that my cultivation of these little sociopaths is a calling. Others would say it is their mission, their cause, their Rais un D’être to spread such fear and discord amongst the Herd, the vermin called humanity. Oh really…. Such immodesty! I would not be so unpardonably arrogant as to claim any such thing. I would merely say it is my Privilege…..”
(Prince Germane of the Royal House of Gosmanger is of course a Born vampire, and an accomplished DreamWalker, with an enviable track record of cultivating serial killers, and releasing them onto an unsuspecting Humanity. He personally instigated the massacre of the three legions under General Varus in the Tutoburghur Forest during the reign of the Emperor Augustus, and has had a hand influentially in most of the bloody events of the last 2,000 years. He is modest concerning his accomplishments, and prefers to live independently of the Great Gosmanger city state of Pylegray, dwelling is lightning struck trees or old barrow mounds, as one of the Born should. He has been an accomplished figure of pain for the human race, waking and sleeping since his 30th Birthday, and achieved his celebrated withered appearance by actually seeking out Knock the Guardian of Purgatory personally during his rite of the sighting, and lifting his hood to look into his face. This recorded speech was overheard by a scribe during one of his rare celebrated visits to Pylegray, when he was asked to address a daring young group of Born vampires about his present activities…)
© By Glenn James 2011-07-01
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