Unseen Buenos Aires: Belek, The vampire dwarf.

In Buenos Aires, Argentina, during the 70‘s-mid Military autocratic period- a folksy maxim was coined: ‘When the sun went down the militia, the guerrilla, the cops, and the criminals were the only true owners of the street.’ By the end of that cycle, a fifth component was added to the aforementioned list:

‘When the sun went down the militia, the guerrilla, the cops, the criminals and Belek the vampire, were the only owners of the street.’

Like all great vampires stories, Belek’s origin takes a page from the Dracula handbook. A native of the Carpathian mountains, home of the Count’s imposing castle, he traveled to Argentina on the backs of circus animals. He was, in a way, the eternal flea stuck to the underbelly of his betters. With a diminutive figure, the dwarf named Kirki, who would later on grow famous as Belek, arrived on the coast’s of Buenos Aires as a clown for the Russian ‘Circus employed at Czars.”’

He was one of the new acts to be incorporate into the mad troupe of gymnasts, arial trapeze, jesters, ringmasters and, all around, entertainers. Know for his impressive agility and mysterious demeanor, he soon became a stable member of the show and, more importantly, of the heavily knitted  the big top family.

Then, during a short period of time, the manager, Boris Loff, who had primitive notions of medicinal procedures, but nonetheless liked to practice his hobby as the circus’s doctor, began to see a pattern emerge concerning a series of animal fatalities. Up to this point, such deaths, were attributed to common ailments. It was Boris’s fervent believe that the creature were being drained of their bodily juices and, that somehow, the case of exsanguination was not internal but external. 

With the help of the Bearded Lady and The Bullet Man, he hatched a trap to ensnare the culprit. One night they were ambuscaded by a wild desperate shriek, that blossomed from the strange dwarf’s alcove. They smashed themselves through the wooden barrier and surprised Kirki, as he nursed blood from a small mammal's jugular vein; his victim was Vera, the cute South American Titi monkey, that had become Boris’s pet during the trip. 

Instantly awestruck and flabbergasted, by such a gruesome sight, Kirki was banished from the circus’s comfort. No official report was ever filed, do primarily to the bands’s misgivings, that such a obscene and scandalous affaire would only serve to blackball their proud socialist paradise, specially if left in the hands of the capitalist bourgeois media.

Kirki, changed his name to Belek and moved into the peripheral neighborhood of Flores. All associations and ties, with his former profession were severed. The small neighbor tried his best to conceal his vampiric tastes towards his new acquaintances.

But, after a while, his bloodthirsty propensity could not be hidden, nor denied. 

His addiction won the better of him and the streets, that once were littered by stray dogs and cats, started feeling lonely. The bent, in the normal order of the environment, caught the public's eye, and speculation started running rampant through the blocks. Then, almost as a final nail that ascertain the incendiary ideas that frightened the populace, the cadavers started appearing and pilling up. No longer were wild ideas liberally forming in the imagination, but they were, in turn, slowly limping their way out from that mind prison. All manner of beasts were discovered, their throats licked clean, their bodies completely empty. 

The local constabulary had not choice, but to raise the alarm and open an investigation. It was only a question of time before Belek’s dirty secrets came to light and, as it seemed, the clock waited for no one. 

Soon his culpability was assured and the evidence riled against him. Like a cornered predator, the brute latched out in desperation and commenced attacking bystanders. A mob of vigilantes was finally amassed to flush out the scoundrel. When they arrived at the dwarf’s dilapidated house, they found the structured littered with the fetid corpses of dozens of small critters; their murderer had long taken leave of his homely abbatoir.

The whereabouts of Belek remain a mystery, although locals swear he sought refuge, and is still hiding, in one of the many mausoleums that day inside “Flores’s Grand Cemetery.” 

Elderly and young alike, to this day, continue to adorn their windows and openings with long garlic strings. A preventive measure against the mad vampire dwarf that still haunts their nights.

Excerpt: The Wraith of The Obelisk- L.J. Gomez.