by Brenda Stephens
“Mr. Holstadtler?”
He said nothing. He could only shake his head, so minutely that I barely saw it in the dim light.
“Very well.”
“What? David,” the mother cried. She turned to her husband and then to me. “Wait!”
I turned to the girl, met her eye, and sunk my nails into the flesh of her neck.
I’m sorry, Sara, but this is for the best.
Please, I don’t want to die. Save me. You have to save me. Please!
There’s no saving the damned, child. Death is the only release.
NO! Don’t let me di–
With one swift yank, the side of the girl’s neck was wrenched from her body. The newly turned vampire girl’s pleas weakened as her mother’s wails became louder.
Numb to it all, I returned to my bag, wiped the blood from my hand on a terry cloth towel, and then took out my log, a light brown hide journal in which I kept information on each victim I came across. In it I wrote:
Sara Holstadtler, 13, Transylvanian, 13 Dec 2010
I put the black fountain pen inside the journal, closed it, and set it on the table next to my bag. Julia Holstadtler was still mourning her half-dead daughter, leaning over the blood-drenched body, trying to adjust the stained white nightgown so as not to show indecency. The maids stood at their mistress’s side while David Holstadtler knelt on one knee by the door, his face buried in the corner, his right arm suspended overhead and plastered to the wall, as his body hovered lifeless.
“Excuse me, Mrs. Holstadtler, but it’s time.”
Julia lifted her head, her eyes overrun with tears. Her breathing quickened as she shrunk back from me.
“Wh-what is this? David?”
Mr. Holstadtler managed to stand but fell with his back toward the door. His eyes reflected the man before him who was holding a stake in one hand and a hammer in the other.
I walked over to Sara’s lifeless body, placed the tip of the stake over her heart and plunged the hammer down hard. The ripping flesh, like the crackling sound of tearing through meat, and the gush of blood, like a big splash of paint against canvas, was deafening. Sara’s body seized, her eyes forced opened with constricted pupils, her mouth gaping with no sound escaping. Slowly, the young girl I first met came back to us. Her skin thickened and grew supple, youthful, with her pointed cheek bones melting to chubby cheeks and her red eyes fading to blue. Sara was Sara again. She was human again. She was peaceful, but she was dead.
I threw the hammer in my bag, wiped my hands, and picked up my journal to add:
Sara Holstadtler, 13, Transylvanian, 13 Dec 2010 – STAKED
I jammed the pen back into the journal, shoved it in my bag, and walked to Mr. Holstadtler with the bag in hand.
“A word, please.”
I didn’t wait. I couldn’t. I left the room as is and waited for Mr. Holstadtler on the other side of the door.
What does Mr. Kade need to discuss – and why did he rush out of the room? Be sure to join us again for Chapter 3, coming August 9th, 2022.
The Dark Forest 