Investigation by Any Other Name

Here is a story I put in the campus lit mag last year.
I clarified it a bit. I hope you like it.
I will be traveling across the Midwest this weekend. Hopefully, I will have time to put together a comic, and, hopefully, I will have Internet access to upload it.

Without further ado,

Investigation by Any Other Name (Revised):
 
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Most people travel to Gilroy California for one thing, Garlic. Sylvia Watson traveled for a seeming contradiction. According to all of the vampire lore she had transcribed over her years of “service,” the last time and place a person would expect a vampire attack is at noon in a church in the middle of a garlic festival. Yet, that was the time and place of the most recently reported vampire attack. Most rational reporters would consider the story something for the most disreputable of tabloids. While Sylvia certainly considered herself rational, she had also undergone a series of experiences which have broadened her accepted view of reality. Such experiences include being born in a magical kingdom and enslaved by a witch for most of her life.

Sylvia mulled it all over. The evidence showed clear signs of a vampire attack, yet the time and place were impossible. She needed help.

Over a thousand miles away, David Watson answers his phone, “Hello princess, do you have an answer yet?”

“Greetings commoner. Sadly, I do not. I could use some help.”

“Then why are you calling me? Don’t you know any vampire experts?”

“I knew one before you killed her.”

“Yes,” David Replied, “but if I had not slain her, then you would still be captive under her spell, and you would not have the opportunity to be confounded with vampire hunts.”

“I accept confusion over slavery any day, and I thank thee once again for freeing me, my love. However, you deprived the world of one of the great repositories of vampire knowledge when you burned her tower. My memory is the last vestal of the once astounding collection,” Sylvia stated.

“I apologize. The next time I see a powerful collection of writings on the dark arts, I will make sure to publish it as a children’s book.”

“Must we continue to vex each other?”

“I much prefer it over hexing each other.”

“Quite, now to the task at hand, how does one deal with a happening which appears to contradict every bit of accumulated knowledge?” Sylvia inquired.

“Let us run though the possibilities.” David suggested.

“The first possibility is that the there was no vampire attack at all, and the report was made in error.”

“I do not know how often I hear that in scientific circles. Observations are routinely taken that contradict accepted theories. Usually, they are immediately disregarded as measurement error. Although, controversial measurement mistakes do get published. 'More often than they should,' might I add?”

“Maybe, a faulty report made it to me,” Sylvia said, “However, the manner of the attack does match many of the previous vampire attacks, and the details I was given do line up quite nicely with the stories I have read, which are not publicly available. It is hard to believe that this report was falsified or made in error. However the details may line up, the overarching contradiction of the larger rules (let us call them 'theories') of vampire behavior is quite befuddling unless we are willing to accept that, perhaps, we were wrong about our understanding of the theories governing vampires. That is the next possibility.”

David agreed, “There are numerous times in recorded history where an accepted theory had to be completely scrapped because it did not hold up to reality. However, the scrapped ideas were usually based on faulty reasoning or unfounded assumptions. The geocentric universe, levity, the four elements, the four fluids, ether were all accepted then rejected by scholars in their fields.”

Sylvia mused for a moment “If the theories are wrong, and vampires are not repelled by religion, daylight, or garlic, then why do I recall many thoroughly documented incidents in which such circumstances where quite effective? What am I missing?”

“'What am I missing?' is probably the greatest sentence in all of science. Those are the words that lead to the great discoveries and to my personal favorite of our little possibilities to explain your conundrum.” David continued, “Perhaps the theories about vampires are not necessarily incorrect. Rather, they are incomplete. Many a physical law which was once thought to be universal was shown to be highly dependent on conditions which were far too subtle to detect, much like Newtonian motion was thought to be universal for hundreds of years until relativity came along and showed that it was only applicable when the speeds are small. So, what will be?”

“I agree that this holds another possibility, especially considering that there is no way to tell how many vampires failed to follow the documented rules, or rather theories, because no one lived to tell the tale. After all, a dead man does not write in his diary how holy water failed to save him, and, in fact, it only made the vampire wet before biting him. I believe that you scientists would refer to such an occurrence as 'sampling bias.'” Sylvia explained.

“Quite so,” David interjected.

 “I regret, my dear, that I must bring our conversation to an end my dear as I do not have much time. It has been following me since I arrived, and the scent of garlic which embraces this town does not slow it one bit,” Sylvia said calmly.

David was not so calm in his reaction to the news, “What? Get out of there! I should have made you take my sword.”

“It is too late, my dear. I will deal with this presently.”

Sylvia walked into the church housing the location of the first attack. The late afternoon sun shone through the stained-glass windows. While she could not hear the fiend approach her from behind, she could somehow sense its presence. Sylvia normally preferred a formal introduction, but she made a concession to both safety and timeliness by speaking quickly while avoiding visual contact. “I must ask you one thing. What is it that you fear?”

The fiend replied with a rasping pride, “Nothing, I fear nothing. Nothing can harm me.”

Sylvia mulled it over in her head. “What did it mean to fear nothing? More importantly, what did it mean to attack with nothing? Is it the same thing as not attacking at all?” Could she resolve such a question? More importantly, could the fiend? She smiled as the though came over here, and even though she did not face the fiend she knew it was quite aware of her expression. “That is good for me, for I have brought nothing with which to attack you, and I attack you with nothing as we speak. Is that not your weakness?”

The fiend laughed, “You must think yourself very clever, but if you are attacking me with a play on words such as that, then you are not truly attacking me with nothing.”

“However, if I am aware that my attack is useless, then I am effectively attacking you with nothing. This would bring me back to the beginning. I appear to have a logical loop in front of me.  Do you have anything to add?” Sylvia waited for a response. When she heard none, she turned around.  The fiend was frozen, its mind still stuck on what she had said.

She walked slowly around it and made her way to the door. Looking in was a small gnome with many other gnomes behind him, each more afraid than the one in front of him to look at the fiend. Sylvia turned to them and said. “All is well. He will never move again.” She fished a handful of metal trinkets from her purse and offered them to the gnomes. “If you would be so kind as to bury him deep in the cemetery, I will gladly make payment for you services.”

A day later, Carl Kolchack looked over the papers on his desk. There were very few editors who would print a story about vampires.  Still, given some of the bylines he had authored in his day, he could not say that she was out of her mind without heaping harsh implications upon himself.  He finally spoke, “You took an awful risk, but no worse than what I took in my day. Really, I am no worse for the ware. Although, it kind of turned out to be a mixed blessing.”

The mixed blessing to which Carl was refereeing was that he was once cursed to live until the day before his beloved Cubs win the World Series, thus experiencing the agony of waiting without the joy of victory. On the positive side, this turn of events has rendered him effectively immortal.

 “So, you are sure that is that it is all in their minds?” He asked.

“I am not certain, but when one examines the credible stories of vampire attacks several patterns emerge. The first is that all vampires have a weakness. The second is that the weakness is always something readily available, be it sunlight, garlic, fire, or wooden stakes. The third is that, chronologically speaking, vampires do not start being effected by a weakness until at least one vampire has claimed to have it. Finally, in all credible accounts of vampire slaying, the vampire was aware that it was being subjected to its weakness. I figured my best course of action was simply to confront it. Usually, they make their weaknesses apparent when confronted.”

“I still can't believe you literally walked into that situation.” Carl said.

                “I was imperative that I try something, even though that something turned out to be nothing, in a sense.  All I had was a theory, which I may never truly prove. However, I do have some evidence to support that the weakness of a vampire is that the vampire believes it must have a weakness, and it believes this so fervently that its own vile powers force the belief into reality. If this is true, then it must have a decision on the laws governing its reality in order to continue in a dangerous situation. It is the sole judge in each case, including the ones that have no logical conclusion. If the judge cannot resolve the laws, then no verdict can be handed out and the court will never adjourn. I like that analogy. I think will use that in my final draft.”