The Best Revenge Is an Afterlife Well-Lived

The nursing home’s windows cast pools of light on the street like puddles of luminescent dog pee.

Albert Wilkinson made a slight ‘Hm’ noise in his throat. So, this was where his nemesis lived. The great Big Mean Hughie. It wasn’t as grand as Al had expected Hughie Tyler to end up in – gold, marble, gargoyles, guards. But he supposed one had to surrender such luxuries when one became a burden on society. Or, instead, your children surrendered them for you. He craned his neck and searched the facade.

Panes of glass gazed back at him. Robed figures shuffled past. Several stood, motionless behind the windows, staring out at the world. Carers in pale blue uniforms hurried back and forth, from room to room. They carried a cloud of stress and anxiety with them. From one of the open windows, a woman’s voice jabbed into the night like a syringe from a frustrated school nurse. ‘Oh, for goodness’s sake! Fine, you can feed yourself, tonight. But don’t come crying to me when you spill it all down you and end up going hungry!’

Al grinned, sharp teeth jutting over his bottom lip. Only Big Mean Hughie could get a kind nurse to abandon him out of exasperation. He’d managed to get several teachers and school aids to give up hope. It seemed he’d not lost the knack for it. Al stretched out his neck and shoulders, and out came his wings as he became a bat. ‘Found you.’

Big Mean Hughie lay in bed like an oversized SUV blocking three parking spaces. He had sagged and faded a bit, but he was still recognisable as Hughie. His skin was now pale and sallow, with brownish rings beneath the eyes. The eyes themselves glinted out of their sunken sockets like a shark’s. Hughie’s breathing came in, slow and laboured, with a sandpapery quality. Several machines had their tendrils up his nose and in his arms, beeping and hissing away.

This forgiveness thing was going to be tough, not least because Al was still afraid of Hughie. Some fears one never outgrows, not even after death. But that tiny human child had had the guts to face and forgive him for treating her father like a ketchup sachet. ‘You’re just a predator and this is what you do,’ she’d said, hands on her hips, hair in pigtails. ‘I wouldn’t be angry at a shark. So, I forgive you. But if I ever see you again, I’m going to stab you with a pencil from my pencil case.’ Such bravery, such tenacity. He’d had to let her go out of sheer admiration. And if she’d had the nerve to confront him, he ought to have the nerve to face a bully from eighty-odd years ago.

Especially now that he was an undead.

Al, still fluttering outside the glass in bat form, rat-tat-tatted against the pane.

Hughie started. His voice was loud and self-assured, coherent even beyond the window. ‘Eh? Who’s that? Nurse? Came to apologise? Fine, enter.’

That was good enough for Al’s vampiric code. With long, slender fingers ending in sharp, black nails, he opened the window. Al poured himself into the room like a spilt bottle of ink on a new couch table.

Hughie squinted at him. ‘Eh? Who are you?’ He paused. ‘Nurse?’

Al sagged. Memory loss had been one of his biggest fears – beyond facing his school bully, that was. He’d waited too long, building up the courage to face the monster of his childhood. But while Al hadn’t aged since his thirties, Hughie had wrinkled and deteriorated like a grape left in the sun. And now his mind had gone, turned to mush, and he wouldn’t remember a thing. ‘Don’t you remember me?’ said the vampire.

Hughie rustled about on his bedside table, knocking over bottles and a pot of yoghurt. No doubt, the carers would have to clean that up. He retrieved a pair of spectacles and shoved them onto his face. He squinted at Al like a man inspecting a bit of mould on a piece of fruit. ‘Eh? Who are you? How’d you get in here?’

The vampire shuffled his feet. ‘It’s Al – Albert Wilkinson from school.’

Hughie kept frowning at him for a minute, and then recognition bloomed over his wrinkly face. ‘Oh, little girl Alison! I remember you! What the bloody hell are you doing in my room? And how comes you still look that young? I s’pose it’s sitting inside with all those books and no girls that did it, eh?’

Al blushed, which was quite a feat for a vampire. He ignored the comments; he’d expected those, at least at first. But when he revealed his true mission, the tide would soon turn. ‘I, ah, came to forgive you before it’s too late.’

‘Well, well, well. You haven’t changed a bit,’ croaked Hughie, with a sly grin. ‘Still pale and ghostly. Still pathetic as ever…’ The final word came out as a whisper of air, and as he said it, his eyebrows rose. ‘Casper.’

Albert recoiled. He’d not heard that name in an age. Not since— Well, not since Big Mean Hughie had called him that back in high school. It had been only half true back then – you couldn’t tan in the library – but it was true now. Being a creature of the night with a sun allergy meant that his “rosy” cheeks had gone the colour of raw chicken. Flustered, he took a step backwards towards the window. ‘I—’

Hughie sat more upright in his bed. With some considerable effort. ‘Now, tell me, what is it that I’m s’posed to have done to you that requires forgiveness?’

Al’s mouth went dry. It was usually dry, because he was the walking dead, but this time it went extra dry. ‘Y-You—’ he stuttered, sounding croakier than the man at death’s door right before him. ‘You made my life misery!’

Hughie let out a single derogatory ‘Ha!’

‘You called me “Casper”! That name haunted me for years!’

Hughie pulled a so-so face. ‘A fitting name if you ask me. Your mummy and daddy missed a trick, there. Would’ve saved you a whole lot of trouble if they’d realised what a loser they’d birthed from day one.’

‘You turned the whole school against me and made me dread coming in every day!’

Hughie shrugged. ‘Well deserved. Pain is weakness leaving the body.’

‘You physically assaulted me, repeatedly! I still have the scar from when you threw that broken beer bottle at me!’

Hughie grinned like an oversized toddler. ‘Just schoolyard hijinks, nothing more. Don’t see why you’re still making such a big deal about it. It was years ago. Let it go, move on, stop dwelling on the past. I moved on the weekend after school ended.’

Al almost said that it was easy to move on when you weren’t on the receiving end, but then bit his tongue. Which, for a vampire, bloody hurt. Not only did Hughie remember, but he wasn’t sorry for any of it, either. Belligerent, brutish, and bone-headed. The same Big Mean Hughie who’d haunted his dreams – both those in the night and those in the day. How were you supposed to forgive such a monster when they didn’t seek repentance?

Some smart aleck once said, ‘Forgiveness doesn’t excuse their behaviour. Forgiveness prevents their behaviour from destroying your heart.’ As a vampire, keeping his heart intact was right up there with proper UV protection. But another had said, ‘The best revenge is a life well-lived,’ which was rather tricky when you were no longer alive. Alexander Pope said, ‘To err is human; to forgive, divine.’ As an unholy creature of the night, he had a slight intolerance to the divine. It made him break out in hives. And Confucius also said, ‘Before you embark upon a journey of revenge, dig two graves.’ But Al already had a grave from when he first died. So, overall, he only had to dig one. Confucius must’ve had a vampiric blind spot.

In the end, Al listened to his gut – it had kept him from the pointy end of the stake for all these years.

He resorted to carrying out his high school fantasy.

Al darted forward and ripped off Hughie Tyler’s big, stupid head with his bare hands.

Under normal circumstances, the blood would have splattered against the ceiling tiles. But here, the older man’s body only released a pathetic spurt and then sagged. Black and crimson gunk dribbled out of Hughie’s mouth. It was the same colour as all his hateful words – the same shade as his soul. Hughie had time to issue a startled ‘Gak!’ before the life faded from his cloudy eyes.

Al stood there, holding the head that contained the brain that had devised such miseries. Holding the head that contained the tongue that had wounded more than any wooden stake could. He squeezed the skull, felt it crack, and then relaxed his grip, letting out a long sigh.

Somewhere, a loud, continuous beep screamed.

Al placed Hughie’s torn-off head back on his shoulders.

Hughie’s glazed eyes highlighted the look of stupid terror on his face. His white sheets would never be white again, and his gown needed incinerating.

While Al had committed an act of violence against a vile creature, he’d also done it a favour. He’d ended its misery. So, in a way, the vampire had chosen the path of forgiveness. Sometimes, the best forgiveness was revenge. There could be hope for him after all. ‘He died peacefully in his sleep of old age,’ whispered Al. ‘Natural causes. Spontaneous head-popping-off happens to more older folks than you’d think.’

Running footsteps in the hall.

Al waved a hand and said three final words before fluttering out the window.

‘You’re now forgiven.’