Vampire Storytelling
Moonlit Melancholy
A Vampire’s Dilemma
Good day, my friends.
What would do if you became a vampire?
Moonlit Melancholy: A Vampire’s Dilemma
They say evil rules the night. Beware if you enter the twilight shadows.
“Come on, Monty. Let’s go!” Faith tugged at the black Labrador's lead. The dog would have been invisible in the darkness without his glowing blue collar and hi-vis coat.
He groaned and continued to sniff about the brambles.
An unnatural wind rustled the leaves of the forest, bringing the stench of decay.
Faith shuddered at the coolness upon her bare arms. The way it seemed to play with her tawny locks left her staring into the darkness between the old oak trees. Why did the woods feel darker tonight?
Monty sniffed the air as he pressed against his mistress’s legs. The happy-go-lucky energy had drained from him.
She had always walked after dark. Better to give Monty a late outing than have him pee indoors. Besides the night always seemed calm and soothing. The hoot of an owl or the passing of a Pipistrelle bat, somehow enlivening.
Faith smiled, “It’s a weird night, Monty. You’ll protect me won’t you?”
He blinked his big brown eyes at her. A comforting lick of her shin and then he pounced on a mouse.
“Leave it, boy.” Faith jerked him away.
Although he grumbled, he fell into step with her again.
They passed a grove of yew trees as the cruel breeze returned.
Monty lowered his stance and growled.
She felt the goose pimples rising and rubbed her arms as the low sound vibrated right to her soul. “Hey, what is -”
Like a flourish of curtains on stage, the clouds revealed a full moon shrouded in an eerie pink glow.
Faith held back a shriek, was it a trick of the light, or had a demonic face appeared in the clouds? She felt her chest heaving, her pulse hammering in her ears.
Monty growled again, his hackles rose as he locked eyes with something invisible in the darkness.
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment. “Calm down, Faith. Don’t let your imagination freak you out!” she looked again but the clouds hid the moon and menace. The face was gone, not so the ominous weight of presence.
The Labrador uttered a squeak and turned away urging his mistress to retreat.
“What is it, Monty?” Faith engaged her phone’s torch. There was nothing but the leaves moving ahead of her. “We’re okay, let’s keep -”
He appeared fifty yards away with the silent grace of a bat. A tall man with a strong physique draped in a black suit with a blood-red shirt beneath. “Good evening, Faith,” he said in a rich, deep voice.
Monty unleashed a volley of warning barks. This figure was a threat to Faith and Monty was making sure he knew his trousers were getting shredded if he came too close.
“W-who are you? How do you know my name?”
“They call me, Athan.” In an instant, he was ten feet away. There was no approach he was just there. “Monty knows I’ve been watching you for a fortnight.”
Faith retreated a step, he wasn’t human. He couldn’t be with such deathly white skin. She gulped as tension gripped her muscles, she felt trapped by the gaze of his demonic red eyes. Yet she knew he was truthful. In that moment the shadow in the car park, the figure on the park bench, and the feeling of eyes in the woods all made sense. “Stay away from me!”
Monty put himself in front of her, teeth bared, and growls nothing short of demonic now.
“Come now, if I wanted you dead. You’d be missing your body already.” He blinked and smiled revealing extra-long and pointed canine teeth, his eyes turning a natural green.
His words offered no comfort. Faith increased her pace walking backwards, “It can’t be … Y-you can’t be … You only ex-exist in movies.”
“Go on, say it.” He urged while matching her pace.
Monty never stopped growling.
“You’re a vampire,” the word seemed to constrict her voice.
He opened his arms with a flourish. “That am I. I was born Nathan a regular human boy. As a teenager, I rebelled and found myself in the cesspools of the world. Drugs and alcohol-fueled my veins until I …”
“Why are you telling me all this?”
“Just enjoying a little conversation. We vampires don’t get to chat very often. Our teeth are usually too busy.”
“No doubt!” Faith glanced about her, if only she could find a branch to use as a stake.
“Anyway, I entered a club called Claret and Lace. Being a naïve teenager I thought it was a strip club.” He grinned.
“Course you did. Boys always think with their groins!”
He laughed, “Quite, I had a good time at Claret until I met Delilah,” the name rolled off his tongue with disdain.
“Lusted after your neck, I take it.” Faith wasn’t interested but realized she had to keep him talking until she could escape.
“That’s a myth. If a vampire goes for the jugular you don’t get two neat little puncture wounds. No, he’ll rip the vein right out of your juicy little neck.”
She shuddered.
“Delilah ensnared me with an offer of lust. I never expected to get tied to a bed on my first experience but -”
Monty lunged with a savage bark.
“Ha, seems she was a little kinky!” Faith hid a smirk as she urged Monty to stay back with her.
“You have no idea. Sex was the last thing on her mind. She sliced an inverted pentagram into my shoulder. While I thrashed in agony she slit her ulnar vein,” he indicated his wrist, “And made me drink her blood. Then it was her turn, she slashed my arm and drank me into a coffin.”
“Damn, you really did pick a savage for your first girlfriend, didn’t you.” Faith glanced behind her. A fallen oak provided an opportunity to the right of the path.
“When I awoke upon the mortuary table. Nathan was dead, I was Athan the Immortal. And now -”
“You’re going to leave me alone!” Faith yelled although the tremble in her voice betrayed her.
He sniffed the air. “Hmm, I love the smell of fear in the evening, don’t you?”
Faith spun and ran for the tree with Monty at her heels. Just as quickly she froze.
Athan was already there, standing on the dead tree trunk.
Monty’s mouth dripped with saliva as he renewed his angry defense.
“I demand you let me go!”
“Come now, I am not Delilah. My methods are nowhere near as crude.”
“I refuse to be your sire. I don’t want to become a monster!” Faith felt tears splash onto her cheeks.
“Like, I said. If I wanted you dead. You would be.” Athan dropped into the leaf litter beneath the log and studied his shiny shoes. The rich confidence he first showed had slumped away with the drooping of his shoulders.
“But you’ve been stalking me. I don’t understand.” Faith took a deep breath, desperate to control her heart and find an escape.
“Watching, not stalking. I dreamed of you becoming my beautiful wife all these evenings.”
“Then my mother would kill me. She wants me to marry a rich doctor, not a vampire.”
Athan chuckled, “Wouldn’t it be uncanny if you were to marry a phlebotomist after today?”
“Whatever, I’m not marrying you.” Faith folded her arms with Monty still growling on the end of the leash.
“No, you’re not. I could not in honor take you to be my wife until death do us part — when I’m already dead.”
Faith smirked, “That does make a mockery of the vows, doesn’t it.”
“It does.” He wiped his sallow face. “You see, in death, I can spend time with you without again a day. Instead, I’d have the horror of watching you grow old and die when your time comes and then be painfully alone again. I could never do you the respect a beautiful woman deserves if I forcibly sired you. I would only doom myself to a hollow eternity of regret.”
“Then what is it you do want?” Faith held her heart as the desire to hug him threatened to overwhelm her.
He reached into his jacket and withdrew a long mahogany stake, “I want you to kill me — again.”
“What?” she stumbled back a step. “Why on Earth do you want that?”
“Simple, for fifty years I’ve roamed the land, wanting only that which the living can enjoy. I dined on pigs’ blood through the inability to bring myself to drink from a human. The life of a vampire with a soul is a pit of despair and depression, and I want it to end,”
“Sounds like you need a psychiatrist.”
“Haha! Can you imagine, ‘Hello, Doc. I’m dead and miserable, can you help me?’ the guy would have a heart attack!”
Faith took a deep breath, the situation was getting weirder by the second.
He held out the stake, “Will you do me the honor?”
“Why me?”
“You’re the one I love. This way I get to feel you close to me as I fade away. Please, let me have this moment.”
Faith tied Monty to the tree. She took a deep breath and approached the vampire. The stake was ice-cold against her fingers as she took it from him.
“Thank you, dear, sweet, Faith,” he said.
She smiled and stepped into his arms, the stench of death permeating the earthy notes of patchouli and sandalwood from his strong aftershave. He towered a foot taller than her. From tiptoes, she placed an arm around his neck and put her lips against his.
His body pressed against her as he kissed back.
She felt his fangs brush against her teeth, his hands smoothing the skin of her arms. Her body tingled as the lust grew within her.
Then he kissed her neck.
She felt no fear, knowing a bite would never come. Faith embraced him with one arm and thrust the stake deep into his chest.
He tensed and smiled, “Thank you, Faith!”
“Rest in peace, Athan.” She returned the smile as he glowed white and then faded into a cloud of dust blown into the trees on the wind.
Faith felt her body shaking as the adrenaline wore away. She returned to and freed Monty feeling empty.
He jumped his front paws onto her chest and licked her face with a relieved look on his doggy features.
“Phew, that was close hey, boy. Let’s go get a strong coffee, shall we!”
He gave a happy bark as they walked away.
Faith looked at the stake. “I might hang on to this for our night walks from now on. Don’t tell anyone though, Monty. We’ll get sectioned into a mental institute with a tale like this!”
The End
Thanks for reading my friends.
this story was originally published at http://masonsmenagerie.wordpress.com on April 29, 2024. You find more great stories there too!
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