Bampire In The Barrio (eBook)

Jeremy Abad (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2024 | 1. Auflage
296 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3509-3877-7 (ISBN)

Infos

Tulio and Lluvia embark on a physical and psychological journey towards self-discovery. Illuminating epiphanies from encounters with La Loba, La Llorona, The Bad Boy, and The Butterfly Woman reveal stories of Tulio's past and drive him to pursue an odyssey beyond his limitations.

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Tulio, who was committed to the sanitarium as a little boy, is now an old man and a trained diablero. He sits in his cell listening to the falling rain, and within that downpour he hears nature's voices guiding him to escape. As he accepts and follows the commands, he is taken on a physical and psychological journey with his best friend Lluvia. Soon, they both elude the sinister Padre Pasillo who wants to desperately catch and return him to the sanitarium. Through this quest, Tulio encounters La Loba, La Llorona, The Bad Boy, The Butterfly Woman, and many other folktale characters who affect his mind and travels. Within those illuminating epiphanies, he learns stories of his past that help him evolve into who he truly is as his life, Lluvia's life, his mother's life, and the Brujas' lives all conjunct and merge into one. In the end, his odyssey offers him the strength to take that one step forward into the unknown desert of self-discovery.

Textauszug

The Secrets of Nature

There are many things that are very secret, things that are taught from objects and instruments that the land holds. Like the white coyote bone they say is used for basket weaving, but is wielded for the quiet death, or the Devil’s Weed that is used to attain power and control of the mind and spirit, to go beyond a world of worlds and to return to a world of pain. My world never shifted from nightmare to bliss. It remained a constant terror as the voices in the air and the growling of the earth reached out to me, talking to me, as I sat silent in my small cell. I breathed in the aroma of wild rain. As it crept closer and closer, and as the scent became stronger, I felt a tension build in the air until, all at once, I heard the rain pour over everything like a waterfall. As the thunder rolled in the heavens, it excited me. I stood and walked foot over foot to the window, where I watched the rain fall like glass beads, plummeting from the sky, reflecting the light from the lantern that stood in the courtyard twenty feet away. I watched the power of nature move. It was my ally. Nature moved water, earth, and air for me, revealing a path and knowing all my intentions.

In that moment, a voice came out of the falling water and spoke to me. It was a voice I had heard before. It told me in a whispering command, “Go, go, go. The walls will melt, so go.” Listening to this voice that only came from the world of happiness where everything is the same, I stood back from the wall and glanced around the world outside my cell. I was shaken out of my world, and saw a different sunrise that met the edge of the earth. It was the smoke of the Devil’s Weed that made my mind see beyond seeing. It also made my senses more aware of the moment when Padre Pasillo was making his round on that quiet morning.

I grabbed the black blanket Aristeo gave me after he died, and my old brown, green, and rust plaid hat that was once my father’s, stuffing it into my back pocket. I was afraid that Padre Pasillo and his young victim, an altar boy named Pedro, would come in at any minute.

As I looked out of the small square window in the door, my eyes scanning to the right and to the left, I heard a rumbling coming from the north, and I glanced at the thick beige wall and saw it absorbing the rain and puddles that were on the other side of the wall. The moisture was crawling slowly to the ceiling, and in that moment, I stood back watching the wall burst outwards.

I covered my face with the back of my hand, flung my thin tattered black blanket in the air, and then tied it around my neck. Preparing to flee from the place that I had known more than half my life, I saw Padre Pasillo and his shadow walking toward my cell door and he growled and screamed at me, “Tulio, get way from the wall. Get over here now!” I turned to look at him and a voice that only I was able to hear came out of the night and said, “Let’s gooooo. Followwww meeeee! To the town! The town that makes you silent.” I stood in the cell, afraid to see Padre Pasillo’s face come out of the darkness. He jingled the large key ring that held the key to my door, and as he came towards my cell, I saw the face of a beast, snarling with teeth, and he crashed into the door, reaching his claw-like hands through it, tearing at the air and almost tearing my shirt with his long nails. I stared at him, and I watched him fumbling for the key, screaming at me in a deep thrashing tongue, “Tulio, get over here now, and stand against the wall! There will be a consequence. I dare you to walk out that threshold.”

I glanced at his big beast hands and fingers fumbling and moving through the keys and his eyes became darker than the shadows in the room. I looked at him and replied gruffly, “I will tell everyone about you. What you do to the little children, the old women, and the slow ones that you hurt.” I became terrified of what could happen if he caught me. Again, he reached for me through the small window in the door, but I stood back as I watched his old strength and his dark anger shake the wall. He warned me calmly, “Tulio, if you step outside that wall, I will come and look for you. I will search every house, bush, and tree. I will search the land and God will guide me to your destination. He will know your disobedience; He will show me where you are, and He will see what kind of man you are. I will make sure you will be lost in limbo.”

I turned around and wobbled, and I stepped out into the courtyard where my worn black boots sank into the clay mud, making it hard for me to walk. I felt the sanitarium didn’t want me to leave, but the voices urged me forward, saying, “Take the steps into the night.” I had to go. Padre would have caught up with me and captured me in several seconds. His old quickness was sharp and severe. I continued to hear the echoing voice in the darkness. Looking back at the hole in my cell, I saw his beast-like shadow coming toward me, trying to catch up to me, but as I looked back several times, I saw the rain hit his old face.

It hit his face like broken glass, making him squint his eyes as both of his feet landed in a mud puddle. Hand and arms sprang from the water, grabbing at his ankles and legs, stalling his every move. I felt scared and happy at the same time. A nervous giggle emerged in my throat and stuck there.

I ran and ran, trying to catch up to the deep voice, but it seemed to disappear and appear in every direction of the night. As I ran, I left Padre Pasillo behind. I could hear his echoes, “I am coming for you!”

I didn’t recognize the small town or the streets, trees, and lights that guided my way. Finally stopping, I could hear my heart beating like it has never beaten before. It was strong and deep like the sound of a drum. I heard it in my ears and head, and then tasted the wild green air that instantly reminded me of my longtime friend Lluvia, and within that air came a curtain of drizzle that opened up and revealed to me a small house of dark green, and the drizzle said to me softly, “You are home.”

Scanning my surroundings and wiping the water from my brow, I realized that I was standing in front of cement steps with a metal railing. My mind was thinking of Lluvia and how familiar the steps seemed. My eyes and wits became clear and I saw that it was my old childhood home. Standing several feet from the entry, I could see something dark moving inside, gliding from room to room as if searching for something.

I walked up the steps and stood in the empty kitchen waiting for whoever was inside to reveal themselves from the other room. I glanced around the kitchen trying to remember one day of ease. I stepped forward to go further into the home, and as my foot hit the weathered floor, I saw a small black and white picture several centimeters away, and I moved toward it, picked it up to see the faces of two young women sitting together. One was older than the other, with the eyes of friendliness and sincerity; the other young woman had a smile of deception, but carried a light within her for the woman she sat next to. When I looked closer at the photo, my aged eyes saw deeper and more clearly that it was my own mother, sitting with a woman I never knew or saw before in my life. As I looked at it, I turned it over, and I could see faded cursive writing that read: Magda and Bla…. Moisture had whisked the ink away, making it impossible to see the woman’s name. They both wore white dresses with decorative fabric around their necks, and their long black hair resting on their shoulders.

At that moment, the house began to shake and doors began to slam inside. I ran to the front door and grabbed the silver doorknob, trying to quietly shut it. Just then, a force came quickly, violently, and tried to keep the door from closing. It was a power that was not a man, and with all my strength, I put the picture between my lips and grabbed the doorknob. With both hands I slammed the door shut so whatever demon or spirit that was inside would not escape.

My heart jumped inside of me with fright and I warily turned around and leaned on the cold metal railing, taking the photo from between my lips and tucking it into my back pocket, trying to forget about what just happened. Demons don’t like to be forgotten. My clothes and long white hair were damp with water, and I wiped my hair from my face and grabbed the edge of my blanket that was tied around my neck like a cape. I dried my face, stepping down on each step. As I reached the bottom, I saw a giant puddle of water the size of a small pond mirroring the light of the moon and the streetlights, and absorbing the shadows of the trees.

In the pond, I saw my image. I didn’t recognize myself. I believed I was the young boy of yesterday, but I was older as I touched my stubbly face, feeling the thinness of my skin, the bones in my cheeks and jaw, and examined the elastic texture of my skin. My face was an entity of its own. The hair grew when it wanted to, and my thin body felt like it wasn’t mine. I was lean and unfamiliar and it pained.

Out of the corner of my eye, as I was inspecting my old hands, I saw a fire that burned in a round metal barrel. Walking towards it, I could see moths flying into the light and heat as bats pursued them, catching their nightly meal. The fire glowed hotter than anything that I have ever felt or seen. I could feel the heat whipping through the air, drying my hair and...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 30.1.2024
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur
• ISBN-13: 979-8-3509-3877-7 / 9798350938777