"Um, Mr. Wachira, what, exactly, is a Ghoul?" says my psychotherapist, Dr. Kadra Mohamed, and I looked at the tall, curvy and dark-skinned, alluring Somali-Canadian Muslim therapist in the neatly pressed white coat and sighed, wishing that she were a little more informed. I've been in the institution for a while now, and like the rest of my former doctors, this lady seems to think that I'm criminally insane. I'm most definitely not...
"A Ghoul is a creature like me, Doc, pay attention," I reply, sighing deeply and forcing myself to be calm for the thousandth time. One day I'll escape from this place, I told myself. I've been here for a long time, a very long time. More than thirty years. I look the same way I did when I came in, and like the dumb asses that they are, ordinary mortals find ways to explain away my agelessness.
I am virtually immortal, and haven't aged a day since I was brought to this place. Doesn't that surprise or amaze anyone? Mortals amaze me with their obtuse mindsets, I swear. They're experts at seeing only what they want to see. Humanity totally sucks, man. What a bunch of bozos, seriously. Small wonder there are entire species of non-humans living in their midst, preying upon them night after night, and they're blissfully unaware of it.
"I see, your delusions persist in spite of your medication," Dr. Kadra Mohamed said, and she flashed me that condescending smile that people reserve for the mentally retarded, or the very young. I knew where this was going. The doctor would be dismissive, and remind me of our upcoming meeting next week, and then exit. If I made any fuss, a group of orderlies would come by and give me a shot. I hate shots. I really do. They suck balls, man.
"See you next week, Doc," I reply as politely as I can, and Dr. Kadra Mohamed exits the meeting room. In a few seconds a group of orderlies will escort me to my cell. I so much as look at them wrong and I get a needle and will wake up hours later, stiff and drooling, and wishing that I were dead. Unfortunately, I cannot die since, well, I'm not alive to begin with.
In case all of this is confusing, and you're shaking your head because you're reading the writings of a mental patient, I'll try my best to clarify matters a bit. My name is Abdul-Halim Wachira. My surname means Servant of the Patient One in Arabic. I was born in 1917 to a Kenyan Muslim father and a Somali immigrant mother in the City of Eldoret, western Kenya. In the summer of 1939, while the rest of the world readied itself for the next Great War, an Arabian Vampire named Fahd Abdulaziz came to our town, and preyed upon my family.
"You will make a fine Ghoul," Fahd said, smiling and the tall, dark-haired and bronze-skinned, dark-clad monster stood there, flashing me his fangs as he held me by the throat. On that fateful night, I'd come home from tending to the goat herds in the hills of Gishu, and found a bloodbath. It was the night my world ended, and in more ways than one, I would never be the same.
The Vampire Fahd had slain my father, mother and sister, and upon seeing him gorged with their blood, I attacked him with my spear and succeeded in wounding him in the gut. I still thought him a mere mortal when I struck him, that was my mistake. I didn't know that the only way to kill a Vampire was to pierce his or her heart or to behead them. Had I known this, I would have dispatched the fiend with haste...
"See you in hell, monster," I cried out defiantly as the Vampire Fahd sank his fangs into my neck. A Vampire's bite is lethal to humans, because their fangs secretes a venom ten times more lethal than a cobra's venomous bite. I should have either died or become a Vampire as a result of said bite, but instead, something unusual happened to me. I arose, three days later, neither human nor Vampire, but something in between. I had become a Ghoul...
"Rise, my new servant, you will make a magnificent Ghoul-slave," the Vampire Fahd said, the night I rose. Thus began my new existence as the servant of Fahd Abdulaziz, a fearsome monster who was feared throughout East Africa and the Arab lands. Fahd claimed to have walked the earth since 1100 A.D. Preying on humans for their blood and robbing the wealthy, Fahd liked to live like a king among the mortals. That was his only weakness as far as I could tell, the fool craved wealth and power...
A Vampire master has complete control over the mind of his or her Ghoul thanks to the blood link. I could no more disobey Fahd's orders than my own right hand or left hand could disobey me. For decades the Vampire roamed the world, and I dutifully followed him, watching as he wreaked havoc on the human populaces of various nations. And then one night, during the summer of 1977, the Trackers came...
The Trackers, a global organization that hunts down and kills non-humans, ranging from werewolves and Vampires to rarer and more exotic monsters that go about in human form. The Trackers did what they did best, tracking down monsters. Fahd and I were living in a rented villa in the City of Boston, Massachusetts. They came in droves, well-armed men and women driven by a single goal, the elimination of non-humans. I watched as they slaughtered Fahd Abdulaziz, thus ending the Vampire overlord's hold over me...
"Now you are free," said the Tracker who delivered the death blow, beheading Fahd and ending the ancient Vampire's reign. I looked at the tall, attractive African-American woman in the paramilitary garb, and smiled in relief. I was still smiling when her acolytes grabbed and put shackles on me. They knew that I wasn't a Vampire since I didn't fear the light of day, but they also didn't know what to make of me, since I wasn't a Vampire, or a werewolf, or any of the non-human breeds they were used to dealing with.
Little is known of us Ghouls. In the movies and poorly written stories, we are the half-dead, docile servants of the Vampires. Let me tell you a few things about us. First of all, we are extremely rare. Few Vampires know how to make Ghouls, and even then it's hit or miss at best. We look like human beings, but we lack a pulse. We do not age, nor can we get sick. Sounds cool, right?
I must say, in most respects, being a Ghoul isn't so bad. We are no stronger or faster than your average human. We sustain ourselves by eating raw meat. We can only die if our brains are destroyed. While the Vampire that made us still lives, we are bound to his or her will. Once they die, however, we are free. No, we are not bound to other Vampires. Oh, and we cannot make other Ghouls by biting humans. I'm afraid that it doesn't work that way.
"I am not your enemy, ma'am, I am a friend to mankind," I said to my savior, whose name was Roslyn Jones, as I later learned. The lovely African-American gal watched as her cohorts hauled me away, to be kept in a top-secret underground complex. Along with the more exotic monsters that they encountered and didn't quite know how to classify...