A story I wrote at a writing club.
Undead
There is a dull numbness in me
A scream rings in my ears
But I feel nothing.
I feel no joy or sorrow
Just pure nothingness…
I feel as if my emotions have been sucked out, just leaving dust.
Blood is on my hands, on my lips, in my mouth.
I should spit it out and wash it off my hands,
But I don’t.
I swallow it, lick my fingers, and let the salty taste as it runs down my throat.
I should be horrified; I should scream and gag with disgust.
But I don’t.
I try to stop the gooey redness seeping inside me, but it sticks and slithers down into me.
The empty feeling is filled with something more sinister.
A longing.
A lusting.
A need.
I want more.
It’s creepy; the way I feel. Like a monster bursting out of me.
A raging animal locked away for all my life.
Now it is free.
I am caged too. They have infected me with this curse and locked me up so that people will come and pay money to see a monster.
That is what the sign outside my cage says.
See the monster
A spawn of the Devil himself
A blood sucking beast
The Vampire Girl
I once was a normal child. I worked as a servant at Kinnear house until they came for me. The memory still lingers in my mind.
It was past midnight. I lay half asleep in my bed, wondering whether I had done the dusting right.
Then, out of the corner of my eyes I saw them. Two tall, thin black shadows, creeping around my bedroom door. I pulled the blanket over my head, dismissing it as an overactive imagination. But I wasn’t dreaming. This was real. The shadow creatures were still there, speaking in husky distorted voices. I coughed. The voices stopped.
I peeked over the top of my blanket. They stood around my bed, their red eyes blinking in the moonlight.
Suddenly, they pounced, dark arms gripping me, stopping me from screaming. Then darkness.
I woke up hours later in a wine cellar, damp, dirty and hungry.
But not alone.
The cellar was shared by another person. A malnourished, pale creature, with eyes as dark as the night sky. The shadow men were there too, standing back encouraging it forward.
The thing hissed loudly and studied my face as if it knew who I was.
The shadow men spoke loudly again, the tallest one pointing at me.
It hissed loudly again and pounced. The two dagger-like teeth sunk into my neck. Blood poured from the wound and seeped all over my linen shirt. I shrieked. Again and again until they removed the creature form the room.
The screams may have stopped but the wail in my head seems to last forever. After this, they left me in the cellar to transform.
I ran at the walls insane with sadness, groaned and whimpered as my bones mutated.
The shadow men didn’t seem to care what pain f felt; they simply waited until the transformation was finished then tied me up and tossed me in this cage.
And here I am.
The shadow men have morphed into human form and are calling out to attract passers-by’s attention.
“See the vampire girl”
“With teeth as sharp as knives”
“Only a sixpence to see her devour this goat.”
The tallest one holds up a vial of blood.
He holds it to my mouth and whispers “Drink.”
I draw back but he extends a thin bony arm and stabs me with his nails.
I gulp and take a sip of the putrid substance.
Then it begins.
The lusting, angry feeling rises. Numbness creeps up and takes hold.
I turn away from the screaming crowds and beg the men to free me. But they just look at me with their glowing red eyes and shake their heads.
No one will help me now.
My heart turns to stone, my brain to ash.
I collapse shivering, weak with power, strong with lust. Too many emotions in me, so many my head seems to burst with it. I gag and throw up. I hear cries of laughter and gasps of bewilderment. While I suffer the people watch and laugh at me, as if I am a clown in a circus, playing a joke on them.
This is no joke for me.
Energy drains, my power runs out.
Darkness…
***
The black smoke before my eyes dissolves and I awake frightened, hungry and in a dimly lit tunnel.
I’m still in the cage but the shadow men are nowhere to be seen.
I sit up and glance around the room. The whole cage is surrounded by hundreds of lit candles. They blaze around me, hundreds of tiny lights.
I stretch my hand out of the cage and touch one of the flickering flames. I feel nothing.
Not even a twinge. The cold numbness inside me will never be warmed.
I hear the distorted voices again. The terrible sounds of the shadow men.
I withdraw my hand and rattle the cage. There must be some way out! The cage remains undamaged. The voices get louder, the men are almost here.
I can’t imagine what they will do to me. Now that I have proved useless to them, they don’t care if I die.
I will be burned alive or made part of some voodoo ritual.
“Gemma.”
“Little girl.”
For the first time the shadow men speak in English.
They are back again, in their original forms, thin, black shadows with sharp, white teeth and burning red eyes.
Tears and sweat pour down my face.
This is the end, my judgement day, my final curtain.
The men stride towards me holding a rusty, iron key in their pointy fingers. The largest one unlocks the cage and the other one grabs me with its claw like hands.
I struggle and try to bite the hands that hold me. But my mouth goes right through.
They speak in their unknown language almost cackling at me.
I am taken over to large crack in the ground.
I look down, fear and dread resting in my heart. The crack is taken over by gigantic flames. Red smoke wafts out of the pit and the stench is sickening, like tar and chilli pepper mixed together.
The shadow men wrap cords around my limbs and then sprinkle me with grey powder.
They chant something in their language and then raise me in the air.
They cast me into the flames. I fall, screaming feel the heat burn me. I was wrong about the numbness. I will perish in this flame or be eaten by the demon that inhabits it.
Then suddenly, I hear a sweet voice calling my name.
“Gemma. Gemma, you are safe.”
The voice is so familiar, but I am too scared to look back.
White arms hold me. They carry me up and away from my fiery death. The shadow men cry out in anguish and jump up and down trying to catch me.
But the thing fly’s me higher, across the ground and out of the dark room.
I gather up the courage to glance behind. I see a face. A sweet, kind, warm face.
The face of my mother.
My mother that died 3 years ago.
I reach out to touch her but she is gone.
The arms disappear, the presence gone.
I am in a grassy field, somewhere in the countryside.
Blood drips from a wound on my shoulder.
My mother has saved me from demons, but for what?
I’m safe, alive, away from the shadow men.
But there is one thing that no one can save me from…
The curse of the Undead…
By Charlotte Reynolds 8RP
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