Sweet Claudia, Return to Me.

-+-Chapter One-+-

-+-

Edit: This chapter was revised. Things were just added to make for a better clinger.

.Louis.

Ever since I had told the boy my story and he turned my words into a novel, I had been in hiding. I knew the consequences before I began to tell my story that night, so I couldn't have been bitter when looking upon my situation in the time after, though I was weary from all of the turmoil and pointless existence to my vampire life. Was I waiting for something to occur, and if so, what? There were reasons I had told the boy my tale, reasons I did not wish to perceive right now. I had been in hiding nearly twenty years; I had found myself a safe place within the old streets of another American city on the west side of the country but well enough away from San Francisco. Most of the young vampires leading the hunt for my head did not even know how I looked, so it wasn't terribly difficult to keep myself safe during those years.

But the bounty for my death dwindled even more when Lestat de Lioncourt continued my story with his own, the one I believed every word of, and after he walked into the lime light of the night and wrote a few songs that exposed every secret Claudia and I begged from him during the years we were together, Lestat became the one with the bounty on his head. After the printing of his novel The Vampire Lestat, I could once again walk the streets of San Francisco since it's vampire community had a new celebrity to obsess over.

The lights, the cars, the smoke, the smell of the Pacific Ocean water was different than what I'd come to love in New Orleans but this coastal city still had a "personality" of its own I'd come to admire. My steps made little sound for a mortal to know I was coming, so a merry tune was produced from my throat as I roamed these once familiar streets. A victim had already been taken tonight, one who heard the whistle and saw my form coming towards them and yet they remained where they were, captivated perhaps, by me as I approached. The new law was to never leave evidence of a kill, so that young man who liked to loiter on the doorsteps of closed shops was given a grave deep in the earth before my night could continue. Steps steady, slow, hands folded comfortably behind my back, I walked along on the sidewalks of the city on this crisp November night.

The clubs and the cinema and the theaters were the only places still thriving with mortals at this time of night, and even now I knew it wasn't as crowded as the day. The brick walls of the buildings portrayed posters of recent films and current productions... I glanced at each one and admired the ideas that mortal men could produce and then bring to life. Themes of these ideas ranged from tragedies and horrors, to human emotions and lives, to the mysteries of the four corners of the world and space. I had always preferred the drama and beauty of a live performance versus the frame-by-frame pictures produced on a large screen, but one time I had gone inside the cinema to watch a sun rise in black-and-white and then once again in color.

Claudia always loved the plays as well. She and Lestat must have gone to several Shakespearian tragedies dozens of times to a point they could recite the plays line for line. And how lovely she looked in the dresses Lestat and I would dress her in, treating her like a figurine and a doll which she came to despise us for. Ah, those wonderful times before the inevitable destructive fire consumed all of our days together, our "happy little family." Seventy years flashed by so quickly, it seems. I sighed and looked up at the final poster on the wall outside of the cinema.

My steps stopped and all thoughts ceased as my green eyes slid over the movie poster before me. Every word, image, emotion provoked when I read that title, the title given to my story by the boy Daniel, was roused. "Interview with the Vampire," the poster read. I paused and let my pale hands fall at my sides. This, of all occurrences, was something I did not expect to see tonight. But what other night, my mind told me.

The tag line for the movie bordering the top said "Drink from me and live forever." The poster itself was red in color with the actor's face, who I assumed was for myself, on the right side, the words printed in the center on the left, and two figures by a street light on the bottom. At long last, my story had been made into a film.

"Tom Cruse,
Interview with the Vampire,
Brad Pitt,
Stephen Rea,
Antonio Banderas,
and Christian Slater."

I was actually curious to see what had been done with the material I had given to the mortal world. I was curious to see who had been chosen to portray Lestat and well as myself, and Armand, but most of all Claudia. Surely a six year old of any regular mortal could not possess the spellbinding entity that my Claudia did. The film was sure to be a disaster if the actors chosen could not emulate the personalities I had described, but then again I had just mentioned how ingenious the mortal man could be... I could not explain why I felt I should go and waste a portion of my night by sitting in a dark room. I wanted to see the film, yes, but reasons behind this strong desire were unknown for the time being.

Within the hour I had seated myself in the very last showing of the film for the night. The seats were hard, the theater dim, full of fallen popcorn and spilled soda and small candies. The only other people in this very late showing was a couple at the very top of the room who were more interested in each others fond company than the film, and another lone man such as myself in the very front who might have simply fallen asleep judging by the slow sound of his breaths.

The curtain rose and the film lit up, picture by picture on the screen before me. I was captivated from slide one.

My reasons for my depression were changed, and the ending was a bit Hollywood since Lestat became a rock star, not a revived abomination who stole young men's cars. (Though I wouldn't doubt if Lestat had done that by now. I chuckled to myself at the thought.) But the general idea and point of my tale was kept alive when details were forgotten and worked throughout the film. I had to wait until the end to match names to faces from the credits, only then did I know Tom Cruise played a genuine Lestat, Brad Pitt and his baby cheeks I, Louis, the man-too-old-to-be-the-boy-Armand-who-separated-Claudia-and-I Antonio Banderas. Stephen Rea, who played a Santiago more annoying than the real when he existed, Christian Slater as the best interviewer the director could manage. And finally Kirsten Dunst, the brilliant young girl they had discovered to play Claudia. Granted, she was older than my Claudia was, Kirsten Dunst was not a day over eleven and my Claudia was not a day over six. But the essence of Claudia, her demands of a child and greed of an adult, everything my daughter was, was in that actress I'd seen on the screen. Unless my ears deceived me, she even sounded as my daughter had sounded!

I felt I needed to see her spectacular performance again. I wanted to rewind and watch the film over and over but that was not possible. I would have to wait until tomorrow to see this film again and watch as the soul incarnation of my daughter portray the vampire child she was created as in the past.

Besides the actress named Kirsten Dunst portraying Claudia, there was an element to the film that I simply could not ignore. It wasn't just because the film was my material, there was more behind my reason for walking into that theater I hadn't concluded at the time... What had I expected to retain when I had seen the poster on the wall? I pondered over this as I returned to my hide-away in the old streets of this city.

But I realized, after I had risen the next night and traveled to the theater again, I had secretly been desperate to see my own life, in a sense, before I had cast myself out of the good graces of vampires everywhere. By attending that performance, I had been yearning to see if I could relive the good times of my life as a vampire before our "happy family" fell apart. And when I had sat through the film, it was like watching the essence of my story light up before my eyes! I had choked from recalling my betrayal toward Claudia in loving another, was bitter when thinking of Lestat and how we had wronged him when he'd given us the life he had and merely wanted us as companions, was delighted when remembering the feel of my little girl in my arms and having others to share the burden of eternity with.

After feeding, I saw the film two more times. Each performance, I had a series of different emotions. In one, I swooned over the actress on the screen, sure she was some form of my Claudia. I clung to every line, enjoying every second of her more mature starlight face and honey curls. Then the next showing, I was appalled with the entire hopeless delusion and was convinced I had confused myself to a point I wasn't seeing the world correctly to draw such a ridiculous conclusion. I left the theater, almost stumbling through the dark and uncleanly allies and acting like my vampiric body had contracted an impossible sickness. What had I been thinking? The chances of the actress who played the character Claudia actually being some form of the real Claudia was preposterous! How could I overwhelm myself with such a hopeless thought?

But my mind seemed desperate for some justification. I stopped and held my hand against the brick of a building, as if to support myself. I recalled in Lestat's novel, the vampire Marius had told Lestat it was possible for a person's soul to come back to the people they loved in a past life. Pandora had been one of those souls. Lestat had looked upon myself and fallen in love with me and my resemblance to Nicholas, one of his past lovers, and apparently by the way I "clung hopelessly to life," he describes. But could this actress really be an incarnation or were my own hopes clouding my judgment to see the truth, she was not?

There was only one way to find out. I had to find and see this girl for myself.

The Disclaimer:

Lestat, Louis, Claudia, Armand, Marius, Pandora, Daniel, Akasha, Santiago and the novels mentioned within those characters all belong to the wonderful creator named Anne Rice, not myself. The films Kirsten Dunst has starred in do not belong to me, but to the producers. And finally the characters of Kirsten Dunce, her family, and her co-stars featured here are all inspired by true people and are not made up from nothing within my head. There will be no made-ups in this selection, only characters inspired from the real thing, whom I do not have any ownership over.