I wandered in a dismal way, stumbling down the narrow lanes between the cabins and stopping from time to time to lean against their rough walls and sob. The night was filled with shadows that moved like ghosts across the ground. A vampire tailed me flitting from shadow to shadow like a rat scarcely visible as it sniffed the air and looked around with boredom. His face was still coated with Mary’s blood. I moved aimlessly, turning back towards the center of the village when I grew too near its outskirts. I could scarcely remember where my cabin was and I couldn’t have slept, each time my eyes closed I saw Mary’s face and then my mother’s face moving back and forth in a trembling visage. My brother and his vampire coterie’s snarls also moved in the shadows of my mind. I wandered along the rutted paths a child abandoned by the men and women who peered out at me from around the crusty rags and blankets that hung in their doorways, the civilization that heard my sorrow through the cracks in their walls and remained wrapped up in their beds.
All of a sudden as I walked the night felt claustrophobic, the walls of the shacks were pressing against my shoulders on both sides, the ground curved up to stifle me, and the weight of the sky with its white speckling of stars bore down upon me so that I felt as if I was wading through a dark mire. Ghosts rippled in every shadow and I felt as if the stale cold breath of the vampire that trailed me was raising the hairs on my neck. My hands had grown numb with cold and my eyes were dry from tears. I saw three familiar full figures framed along an alley way and I broke into a run. The vampire flitted along behind me like my own shadow looking bored and sated by his feast. His eyes were half closed as if he were half asleep. The preacher and his two sons turned and looked at me. The sons’ eyes widened and one of them swung his shotgun towards me, but the preacher only cursed. “What do you think you’re doing?” I slowed down and looked at him. He was just a little piggy in a den of starving children who would trick a young girl into doing his work so that he could be held blameless. Just a man who hid behind countless others. A great rage mingled with my great hopelessness as I stared into his beady black eyes glinting in the light of a torch he held and his floppy jowls. I was besieged. I snatched the shotgun from his son’s hand before the boy could blink and turned it on the preacher. He didn’t even look down at the gun but simply continued to stare at me with his surprisingly steady eyes, narrowed even further if that was possible. The torch had ruined my night vision and left me floating in a cloud of twisting orange light and far off walls washed out with a yellow light. The vampire looked amused. The son whose gun I’d taken trembled behind his father, but the preacher just began to speak with an amused confidence. “Do you think that you’ll accomplish anything this way? Killing me will only allow the parasites easier access to their prey.” He snorted. “I am the glue that binds these people together in any kind of resistance.”
My words came out weak and cracked through gritted teeth. “You sent her to her death. You used her.”
“I did no such thing. A weak-willed girl who would have turned against me at any moment if only your brother had been willing to give her the time of day. She didn’t work for me and you’re a fool to think so.” I stared into him as if my eyes could burrow beneath his skin and discern the truth. “You should be thankful that the Lord has returned her to his bosom instead of condemning her to eternal damnation and hunger, wandering the earth bereft of His presence.” I struck him in the chest with the butt of the rifle. He dropped the torch with a gasp as he doubled over falling onto one knee in the dirt. The vampire behind me cackled and it filled me as if he were some maniacal part of myself finally freed. His sons started forward, but he gasped, “Let him be you fools,” as I turned the barrel to meet them. The moon had grown large and red and settled over the village as I wandered. It pulled at my mind. It filled me with sickening thoughts. A thread of spittle running down the preacher’s chin drew my eye and I turned away in disgust. “He won’t be long in this camp now,” the preacher said breathlessly.
The vamp smirked at me. His blonde hair was raggedy, unkempt, and oiled futilely in an attempt to disguise the effects that vampirism had had on it. I thought that he might congratulate me, greet me as cheerfully as any buddy would but my face must have put him on. Despite the grimness of my face he continued smiling widely looking past me as the preacher was helped to his feet until I put the shotgun to his chest and pulled the trigger. A froth of blood and flesh, warm and red from his recent feed splattered across my face and clothes. He was blown to the ground several feet away from me before he could make a sound and fell in a crumpled heap reminiscent of the fetal position. His glassy eyes stared up
