FOR SALE: ONE VAMPIRE -CHAPTER ONE : The Coffin

FOR SALE: ONE VAMPIRE

©Copyright 2024 by Mark Watson

CHAPTER ONE — The Coffin

The first sign that something was wrong came when they crested the final ridge and laid eyes on the village below. Unlike the bombed-out husks of other settlements they had passed — places where walls stood like jagged teeth and blackened timbers clawed at the sky — this village seemed untouched. It stood serene and whole, a jarring anomaly amidst the surrounding devastation. The afternoon sunlight bathed the neatly arranged stone and clay houses, their red-tiled roofs intact and unblemished. The streets were wide and clear, flanked by crumbling but strangely untouched market stalls, as if the villagers had simply stepped away for a moment and never returned.

The platoon halted, uneasy. Sergeant Yilmaz pulled out his binoculars, scanning the horizon and the village itself for movement. “No signs of activity,” he muttered, his brow furrowed. “No smoke, no vehicles, no people.”

“But it’s not damaged,” Private Kemal said, lowering his rifle slightly. “How’s that possible? Every other place we’ve been to was rubble.”

“Maybe it’s a ghost town,” Corporal Arslan offered. His voice was light, but his eyes darted nervously across the…