"Vampire" by R.E. ´Riibu´ Kankaanpää

It was too dark to see anything. The night made the forest black and cold. Though he was freezing, he struggled onwards. He kept tumbling over, unable to see where he was going, but he continued. He held his arms around himself, but that did not help. He was so tired... his body longed for sleep, rest, but he could not stop. He had to go on.

Somewhere ahead of him stood an abandoned house. A weatherworn and ruined home. Once it had been a grand place, surrounded by a lush colourful garden that had now grown full with weeds and all of the former beautiful flowers had rotted away years ago. The trees had become twisted images of their past selves, and they cast eerie shadows on the cracked and mouldy wall that enclosed the house and its garden.

He panted heavily, the cold air twisting his insides painfully. He had to keep on going, running. Where, he was not sure. But he continued on nonetheless. He tripped over, and it took him a long while to gather enough strength to rise and carry on. He could not run anymore. He was forced to drag himself onwards, his body nearly exhausted. Just a little longer, only a bit further.

The wind howled unmercifully around the house, invading into rooms, seeking out all of the little faults in the house and taunting all of its secrets, that now lay bare in sight.

He had stopped. He stared at the battered walls ahead of him. He could see the naked branches of trees loom on the other side. He looked at the wall at its length and noticed a gate further on his right. He gathered his breath and dragged himself towards it. The gates were made of iron and the bars were stout and heavy looking. But weather and time had done their worst to the bars and they were covered in dark rust. He looked between them, beyond the bare trees, at the house. He pushed at the other gate, and managed to thrust it open just enough for him to slip past.

The front doors had mostly rotted, and both were practically torn off their rusty hinges. Both swung lightly in the night wind, hanging limply on their holds. He stepped carefully inside the hall. Doors lined the mouldy walls, and a stairway rose up to the second floor along the back. There weren't many stairs left on it to use. He looked around, but he could have been blind for all he saw. Pitch black darkness. Except for a minor glow... visible only if you concentrated in its direction. And he saw it, there, faintly shining under one of the doors.

It was the kitchen. There was one single, lonely candle burning on the table in the center of the room. It looked like it had not been burning for a long time. It looked as if it had been lit only moments ago. But for that to be possible, someone should have been there to light the candle. And the house was abandoned by all life. He was not sure why the candle was there, but he suspected it had been lit for him. He shuffled to the table and reached for the candle. He lifted it above his head and looked around. It was as he thought; everything was heavily covered with dust and some old cobwebs hung at the corners of the room, dust stuck in them. Then he looked down, and walked to the other side of the table. There was a hatch down there. He knew he had to go through it. Unlike everything else in the house, time had neither rotted the wood, or rusted the hinges of the hatch. When he lowered himself next to the hatch, he saw that the hinges shined in the flickering light of the candle.

There was a small storeroom there. It smelled sour and rotten, and old to him. He held the candle high. Shelves covered three of the walls. On his right, the racks had dirty bottles in them. In front of him the shelves were empty, and the ones to his left had black lumps that he suspected had once been sacks of food. Behind him was a door. It was a low one, and he had to bend down to walk thru it. The door led to a narrow tunnel which smelled musty. He trailed forward, his steps echoing ahead of him. He heard something crack under his feet and he paused to look down. He brought the candle closer to the floor and in its light he saw that he had stepped on some whitened bones. A long dead animal, whatever it had been.

The further he went, the more he heard cracking. He had tried to avoid stepping on any old skeletons, but soon it was more than difficult. Anything that might have been ahead of him, certainly knew he was coming. Even if it weren't for the bones, his shallow panting was loud enough.

And then, the tunnel ended with another door. It was made from some dark wood and in the light of the candle it looked ominiously black and abhorrent. He felt tired, his legs burned him and his lungs felt like they were full of cold sickness that made his chest ache. There was nothing left of him or his will, and no matter how much he just wanted to lie down and stay there forever, he couldn't. His hands were already reaching for the doorknob, not waiting for the remains of his will to command them.

An evil breeze blew out his candle as he opened the door and he was left in darkness. His sense of smell seemed to become stronger and the stench of decay made him falter. He staggered on and before he collapsed a pale hand reached out and grabbed him by his torn and filthy shirt.

He was gently lowered to the cold floor. He lay there, unable to move, all strength had abandoned him. He could not see anything, but he could feel how bony hands touched his chest. He felt the coldness of its fingers through the rips on his shirt. The hand moved to touch his throat, and its coldness chilled his heart. He almost panicked, but he hadn't enough strength to even try to push the hand away. He just lay there, waiting for the end, the rest he would get.

Something brushed against his cheek. The creature had lowered its head next to his. Its skin was icy cold. For a fleeting moment it stayed like that, crouched above him, their cheeks lightly touching. Then it stirred and bent its head to his throat. A freezing sting, a burning sensation went through him. He spasmed briefly. The vampire cradled his body on its lap, head bowed down to his throat, intently. It didn't matter anymore, no fighting back. He soon passed out, his heart beating a while longer. Then that too ceased. The vampire held him close. For the vampire there was only hunger, but he wouldn't provide any more nutrition. The vampire held him close, for the strange feeling it created. Something left in the vampire's old instincts yearned for the warmth and touch of another human being, but this one had died and was growing cold. The vampire did not recognize the feeling anymore, but it did not let go.

The house creeked quietly in the night. The howling of the wind outside and the rattling of broken windows. An empty shell to an empty presence. Do the stones forget? The house still remembered faintly old times past. Do the stones forget? A ruin for an empty presence lurking in the dark. Forgotten in memory, unknown to present.

One by one it called the descendants of the family who had lived in the house so long ago, until no one was left. And it would hunger, hunger on. Only cold left within the pit where its soul once was. Everything gone.

Only a faint dream roaming around the ruins, a nightmare. And the night continued, dark as ever.