In the ghostly light of a candle, an older man sits drinking. He stops, clears his throat, then puts his head in his hands. No tears escape his eyes but despair shakes his shoulders in the silence. He takes a moment to glance up at the things on the table in front of him- A bottle of alcohol and a rusty golden lockette. He pushes these items away from himself, gets up and walks to the other end of the cellar. He presses his head against the wall.
Earlier that month his wife of 26 years had died of consumption. She had fought valiantly but still could not overcome the disease. The bed in which she had died was still stained with the blood she’d coughed up. The man had not yet been able to bring himself to enter the room. All he wanted was to sit downstairs and make believe that his wife Millicent would be waiting for him with a smile when he came back into the room.
A knock on the door interrupts the man’s thoughts and he slowly pries himself away from the cool wall. He started up the stairs, hurrying as the knocking grew more insistent. He opened the door to find four of the local townspeople. They looked grim, and the man wondered what news they could bring that could possibly be worse than what had already happened. The people were all carrying shovels, and a priest was with them.
“People are dying. We had to dig up your wife.” The tallest visitor said, getting straight to the point. “Since she died, more and more people keep dying in the same way. We dug her up and she still looked alive. She must have been a vampire, so we fixed the issue.” The visitor looked towards the priest and cleared his throat. “We just… thought you should know.”
The man standing in the doorway continued staring at the newcomers. With a deep sigh, he said “You’re all mad,” and closed the door. He walked away, back towards the cellar. Outside, the visitors began to disperse. All except the priest, who continued to hang around the edges of the property until the rest of the group had certainly gone home. Then, he trekked back to the cemetery in which they had recently exhumed the suspected vampire. The priest stared at the freshly re-filled in grave, and smiled, showing long fangs.