Just a quick note that this contains elements of horror.
Ringo Starr is a vampire.
I know it sounds crazy, I’ve gone half-mad just trying to accept It myself, but I saw him last night, I saw him in the pale light of moonless sky, and I believe he was a vampire.
I should start at the beginning.
I’d always loved the Beatles: Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, they were heroes to so many of my generation, and many recording artists still look up to them today. But, unlike most, I always looked up to Ringo the most. It’s odd, I know it’s odd, but he was the quiet back beat of that entire juggernaut and without him I’m not sure if they would have been as successful as they are today. But I digress.
It started with a google search on a sleepless night: Ringo Starr side projects.
Innocent enough, you would think, and a search that any Beatles fan would have probably called it up at least once in their life.
I looked at Wikipedia, read about the solo releases, I skimmed over a few sections of a biography that was available for preview, but as the hour grew long it was a ghastly fate that led me to a forum thread mentioning the Beatle’s time in India. It was an important moment for the band, with many calling it their most productive time as song writers, but I was curious to see why Ringo was the first to leave.
The thread started with the regular nonsense and stories of his dislike of the food; silly things that many before would argue over in lieu of something constructive.
It was on page 3 that I first saw the deleted posts. Thirty-four replies to a single sentence all deleted, thirty-four voices silenced for whatever input they had to the following words, ‘He learnt from the power of blood, a vampire’s reign begins.’
The next available reply was just a sick joke about his time in The Hollywood Vampires, and a movie named Son of Dracula.
I searched and searched for more information but could only find deleted accounts, destroyed records; the night was cold, my mind was racing, I went for a walk.
The fog of London hangs thickly upon abandoned streets, and the curse of insomnia did little to help with my already fraying nerves. Nothing good happens at this hour, the sky is at its darkest and no matter how the streetlights shine with their electric glow, an otherness grows within the air. We rightly fear the dark, the unknown; I don’t know what drew me to the banks of the Thames but as if under a trance I was guided there, guided toward that slick of red upon the pavement, something that I knew to be wrong.
‘So, you seek the power of blood?’
A familiar voice called from behind, breaking the spell of listlessness and causing my surroundings to rush into a vivid form of awareness, I turned around and the fog spoke agony, it was though a welt of pain was withdrawn from my mind by careless hands.
He stood there; Ringo Starr stood upon the spot where only blood had been before.
His expression was cold. From pointed fingers, too sharp to be that of a man’s, warm blood cascaded to the ground, pooling next to the form of some poor wretch who had been alive just minutes ago. Teeth, both jagged and canine, were aligned like shards of glass within Ringo’s jaw and it was clear that were not designed to puncture, they were there to tear, to rend flesh away and expose the fragile life beneath. He smiled at me and brought a blood-soaked claw to his lips, mocking my inability to scream for help.
I ran.
Of course I ran, not two hours ago was I at home in safety and reading a biography of a hero that I now see as a monster.
Trapped without reason, I quickly became lost within strange streets foreign to the ones that I had lived in all my life. Alleyways became twisted and held the pale face of death in every corner, fog billowed from the settling dew and dampened all but the sound of my own rasping breath. I was blind in that moment, Ringo stalking me from darkness. I heard laughter all around me and knew it to not be an echo, there was no way a laughter so cruel as this could encompass every facet of my mind with such a quiet menace. Madness had claimed my ability to hold reason, all I could do was run.
The fog was oppressive, it felt as though it pulled at me, reached into my lungs and stole the air from them, my breaths became shallow gulps and a strangling panic had become iridescent. I had to see the sky, some primal urge deep within my psyche compelled me, demanded that I flee from this terror and regain the normality of sky. How long had I run, hours, years? It was only the welcome sight of a detached stairwell that gave me a glimmer of hope.
A fire escape, its broken door torn aside by some unknown force and looming as my salvation. I dove through that door with a hurry that landed me upon the steps, clattering my side against the metal and drawing the last breath from my strained lungs. Regaining my feet with a scrabbling yelp, I made my way upward five full floors before the staircase opened into a courtyard availed of fog and in full view of the night’s sky, there was a lightness to the air, dawn was soon to follow.
I laughed as weight lifted from my shoulders and I thought myself safe. Turning and thanking heaven for dispelling for whatever illusion had taken over my mind, I took two steps backward and felt a sudden dread behind me, a dread engrained from beyond the dawn of man.
Agony bloomed from my side as I was pulled leftward and spun around to face my pursuer, his two wild eyes screaming with the joy of a hunt nearing its completion. Blood began to wet the torn fabric of my shirt, I moved to hold against the pain but was struck into the air by an unfathomable strength, the creature’s palm pushing my windpipe closed.
‘Are you ready to die little man?’ Ringo sneered, lifting me with an iron grasp and baring his pointed teeth so that I might know the design of my death.
‘Man?’ I cried weakly as daylight became a thin line upon the horizon. The edges of London were now illuminated and heralding the arrival of day. I did not know much of this monster’s kind, but within every fiction should walk a modicum of truth.
‘You should have called me little darling.’
‘Darling!? What fool’s tongue do you speak with? You think make jokes before you di-‘
Halting before landing his final strike, Ringo stared into the reflection of my eyes and saw the approaching dawn behind them. Howling in fright, he released me from his grasp and attempted to cover his face from the light that now burned at his vampiric form.
Jumping from the roof, Ringo quickly disappeared into the still darkened alleys below, leaving me to rest in the pale light of day.
‘Here comes the sun, you bastard!’
J. McCray
2022
Sunday Short Stories 