There was a stretch of the long winding river in the park where it had a nice looking curve to it. That was the place where Charles thought that he might set up his easel and perhaps paint or nap.
      Mostly though, he wanted to ponder Cecily and wonder where they’d gone wrong together.
      So he did so. He took the painting implements from his wicker basket and started to dab at the canvas. He was trying to capture the expanse of green field and gray river in two dimensions, but he wasn’t a very good painter to start with. Worse, he found his mind too distracted by other things to concentrate on the task at hand.
     So he tried to nap. He gave up his seat at the easel to lie in the grass beneath a tree. He even pushed his cap down over his eyes to keep out the sunlight and other natural distractions. But even that did not settle his mind.
      And so he just laid there with his cap down over his eyes and thought about Cecily and what he was ever going to do about her.
      She was to be wed off to the much older Hubert and not to Charles as they’d both discussed. Her father even told Charles that he was an aimless dreamer who would never amount to anything.
      Charles thought the wealthy Hubert was a terrible match, and it wasn’t even because he was spiteful or jealous. Cecily’s husband-to-be was moralistic and stern. His bleak principals would make her old and worn before her time. Charles had even suggested a love affair, but that had only earned him a lashing from her sharp tongue.
      So there he laid pondering ways to disrupt their marriage or stealing her away. He was half-asleep but not fully so. Awake enough to feel a light brushing across the exposed part of his throat. The sensation was not unlike that of being tickled by a feather. It wasn’t unpleasant, merely disruptive.
      So he opened his eyes and lifted his cap. There, lightly brushing at his neck with a pair of fluttery and Technicolor wings, was a petit girl-like creature. She was nude, and perhaps as tall as his forearm was long. But her body was so perfectly sculpted and exquisite, that he’d almost completely forgotten about Cecily and those troubles the moment that he saw her.
      He reached out, but before he could touch her with his fingers, she gave a slight giggle and disappeared with a melodious twang. In her leaving, his senses filled with vertigo briefly. It was like being tossed at sea. The smell of burning poppies lingered in her vanishing wake.
      Bewildered by the encounter, he got himself up off the grass, gathered up his things, and made his way out of the park to head home.
      She came back to him again at night while he slept restlessly. Their encounter in the park had been too fleeting to make him forget about Cecily longer than the afternoon. But when he felt the tickling of wings upon his bare feet, he knew that she’d returned.
      His eyes snapped open with excitement and he scrambled to the foot of the bed, grabbing blindly in the dark for her. There was the fleeting sound of her singsong laughter and he was let holding something. He could tell though… it certainly wasn’t her.
      It felt like a large grub, alternately bristling like a hedgehog and then soft like the underbelly of a toad. It was warm and squirming in his hands, so he dropped whatever it was and then lit a candle.
      It was a large grub, pale and yellow-white and squirming atop his bed sheets. Because its appearance was hideous, his initial reaction was to throw it on the floor and smash it underfoot. He wanted to tilt the candle to burn the sheets and the bed and the terrible thing she’d left with him.
      But he paused before he did anything destructive. Perhaps she’d left it as a gift to him. Maybe, because she was clearly otherworldly, he was meant to take care of the worm to declare his love and trust to her.
      True or otherwise, it certainly calmed his mind to think in that manner. The idea most certainly helped him to further forget about Cecily and Hubert the stern prick and all of that business.
      So he swaddled up the maggot in the top sheet as if it were a baby. Then he emptied his artist’s basket and placed the worm inside as if it was a cradle.
      For nine days he cared for it, hoping that she might return. But she never did. His reward was a second birthing. It was a birth of a different kind. It came at night and woke him from a pleasant dream in which they were marrying inside the gazebo at the park.
      What woke him was the pleasant tickle of wings again. He was excited, but calm enough to keep his wits and not grab for her in a panic this time.
      Instead, he moved slowly and carefully. He rolled to the nightstand beside his bed to light a candle.
      In the soft glow, he saw once again that it was not her. Instead, some kind of moth or insect hovered in the bedroom air above him.
It had her wings, he had the time to note. Then it vomited something green and foul from its anus and he could see nothing but burning.
It was eating him soon after. Occasionally, it arched its thorax to sting him and add a poison to his blood to keep him still and compliant as it feasted.
Still, he could think of nothing but his elusive fairy maiden, and what they had created in those fleeting moments that they’d known one another.

——————

©2011 Michael Colangelo

“Try again?” a voice said.

Asa knew the voice. Her first kill. So long ago but still so fresh in her mind.

Footsteps started to echo, the creature coming closer.

“I need to taste your blood,” it said.

Its face started to show. Asa turned and ran. The vampire was on her in seconds. It was faster and bigger than Asa remembered.

It touched her shoulder.

“Asa, it’s time…”

She stopped and turned.

“Take me then,” she said.

“Asa, can you hear me?”

It was Mr. Rogers voice.

“It’s time Asa…”

The vampire was the same but now with Mr. Rogers voice.

Asa blinked and the darkness erased with the vampire. It was gone.

“Hello?” Asa called out.

“It’s time,” Mr. Rogers voice said.

Asa blinked again and was in her bed. The voice continued calling her and she felt it rumbling through her body.

Mr. Rogers.

“Asa, are you there?”

“Yes, I’m here. Was having a nightmare.”

“Nightmares? There’s plenty of those in the real world. We have a night seeker…”

Mr. Rogers went on with a description of her next victim. One that was common for a night seeker – dark. Trench coat. Black heavy boots. Dark skin. Dark eyes. Long black hair. And hungry.

Asa had no time nor need for her iPod. She needed to lurk and plan an attack.

Night seekers weren’t the strongest or smartest creatures, but they were relentless. They knew nothing other than the instinct to feed. And feed they did, easily taking ten people in one night. That of course would attract attention and Asa’s job other that protecting was to keep everything quiet.

The night seeker was hiding in one of the dozens of alleys around town. It was no big secret the activities that happened in these alley’s and the last thing Asa wanted was for people to find out about vampires being there.

Asa kept on the main street only knowing to turn down an alley when she felt the pulse. Cars went by without a second glance. In some ways it saddened Asa and in other ways it didn’t.

She felt the pulse two minutes into her walk. A low rumble almost. That meant the night seeker was feeding. No time for sympathy, but Asa did wish the victim was already dead.

But feeding was good, it gave her an edge. The creature’s focus wouldn’t be complete… she turned down the alley and saw the faint red-white outline. She called it “creature heat” but Mr. Rogers probably had a better name for it.

As Asa approached with caution the victim came into view. A man. Tall. Drained. And then poof the victim turned to ash and the vampire stood and turned towards Asa.

Asa wanted to scream. The vampire looked hideous, its face covered in welts and scars. Greenish glowing eyes and a look of satisfaction, just taking a fresh life. And the blood. The blood on its face much like a child that just slurped on a jelly doughnut. Only that wasn’t the scary part. With the night seekers and all the vampires Asa ever encountered, they had a special ability. They were able to open their pores and suck in blood on their skin. Not wasting a drop of the victim’s blood. In seconds the night seekers face was dry, clean, and he was ready for more blood.

Asa stood her ground. She waited for the night seeker to make its first move. It did, jumping ten feet into the air onto a roof of a shed. Asa jumped too but being mostly human she only went a foot or two into the air and landed back at the same spot.

The vampire laughed.

Asa shrugged her shoulders.

The vampire now had the sense of power. Exactly what Asa wanted. Being a show off the vampire did a front flip from the top of the shed back to the alley. Asa stepped back and preteneded to do the moonwalk.

The vampire laughed again.

“Humor blood,” it said. “I enjoy.”

Asa nodded and stepped back again.

The vampire stepped forward and put his hand out. “You cannot run…” With a flash of spark in the vampires hand a knife appeared. “I’ll chase you. Cut out your vocal chords but keep you alive…”

The night seeker stepped again, now inches from Asa. He touched her face. To Asa the pulse hit so hard tears came to her eyes. To the vampire, it was just another crying meal.

“Can I show you a trick?” Asa asked.

“What kind of trick?”

“It’s called a cart wheel.”

The vampire stepped back and raised the knife in the air. “Come to me then. And if you run…”

“I won’t,” Asa said. She couldn’t believe how innocent she sounded. And how naïve the night seeker was.

She braced herself and threw her arms forward. Her legs came up and over. With great strength she pushed off with her right hand and as her legs came back down she reached with her left hand into her waistband and took out the piece of old world wood.

She somehow knew the night seeker was going to try and stab her so she turned and when it did attack it struck air. Asa then came up with the old world wood into the night seekers heart.

The vampire stumbled and fell back.

Asa took a seat and waited for the sun to rise. When it did an hour later the colors were beautiful. A deep pink fought with the thin clouds sending streaks across the sky. The dead vampire burst into flames as night seekers can only come out at night.

Once the creature was ash, Asa stood up and walked away. It was Thursday morning. She would go home, sleep for three hours, and then go for a run.

___________________________

 

 

©2011 Jim Bronyaur