The Adventures of Garl and Odra Manyboots- A Rough Introduction
It seemed the Eswa Adventurer’s Guild was the place to be tonight. The music was playing, the beer was flowing… And at the bar, Sterling Van Broom, a broomstick of a man with a curled handlebar mustache and a haughty expression was discussing some more sinister work with the guild master.
“So, do you have anyone for the job?”
The guild master sighed, rubbing his right temple and cursing the god that brought this man into his guild. He glanced over the adventurers in the room, the happy go lucky halflings singing about their latest heroics, the cheery gnomes playing cards, the delighted elves and humans mingling together after the successful defeat of a red dragon… and then his gaze stopped at the table in the far corner, tucked away just out of sight from anyone casually entering the guild.
“For something like that, you’re gonna want Manyboots and her friend,” the guild master said, pointing towards that table.
Sterling looked at the table, where a person was having an animated conversation with a statue. He couldn’t get a better look, all he could tell was that whoever they were, they were quite… small. “The little one over there? Did you not hear me? I need-”
“I heard you plenty fine,” the guild master snorted, “and I told you who you’d need. No one else here will take something like that, so she’s the best you can do. So either talk with her or get the fuck out of my guild.”
Sterling huffed before he headed for that corner. This close he could hear the grating, shrill voice of this ‘Manyboots’, chattering away to apparently no one save the terrifying statue she was sitting next to, so clearly she was crazy.
“Excuse me, I’m here to-”
“HOLY FUCK, DO YOU MIND!?”
The chair spun around and Sterling was more than a little taken aback by the sight of a hideous goblin sitting there. She had a hood over her enormous head, disproportionate to the size of her body. Even compared to goblin kind in general, she was small, probably would be barely two feet tall while standing. Her massive red eyes glared at Sterling as she shook a dirty finger in his direction. “I’m in the middle of a conversation! You can’t just waltz up here and interrupt!” she said.
“I- um-” Sterling managed to recover from the shock and he straightened himself up. “I’m here to hire you for a job, but if you keep talking back to me like that-”
The goblin cackled before taking a long swig of her beer. Wiping the foam off her mouth, she leaned in, grinning from ear to impressively large ear. “Okay, you’re forgiven. Whatcha need? Robbery? Arson? Murder that looks like suicide, or just flat out murder?”
“W-well,” Sterling cleared his throat, “my father is the great Governor van Broom, but he will not recognize me as one of his heirs as my mother was one of his maids. She died of a broken heart, and I have nothing but a pitiful clock shop to my name. I have been robbed of my birthright, and I seek revenge upon the man that abandoned my mother and…” he trailed off as he realized Manyboots had tuned him out and was back to slurping from a mug that was over half the size of her torso. “Do you mind?!”
“Huh?” Manyboots looked up. “I’m sorry, I was waiting for you to get done with the boring backstory shit.”
Right. Now he was pissed. Sterling raised his hand to slap the smirk off this stupid little beast.
“Listen here, you little-”
In a blur of gray stone Sterling’s wrist was grabbed by… the statue.
That was not a statue.
It looked like a statue, but on second look Sterling could see it blink its glowing green eyes, how it glowered at Sterling as its claws dug into his arm.
Manyboots shrieked with laughter. “Your faaaace! Man, your faaaaaaace!” she said, wiping a tear away from her eye. “Oh man, that never gets old. Garl, let him go.”
Garl cocked his head to the side and Sterling felt cold sweat dripping down the back of his neck. Even if Garl wasn’t actually a statue, he had a clutch like one.
“Try hitting her again, and you’ll lose more than your birthright, bitch.”
The statue released Sterling and he jumped back, clutching his bruising arm to his chest and trying to say anything, only for meaningless stammering to babble from his lips.
“Right, let’s start from the beginning.” Odra slammed her mug down on the table and stood up on the chair. “I’m Odra Manyboots, and this is Garl the Gargoyle.” She leaned in uncomfortably close, Sterling trying not to gag on the smell of rotten meat on her breath. “Listen, we don’t care why you want us to do this. All we need to know is what needs to get done, when we need to get it done, and how much you’re going to pay us. Got it?”
Sterling cleared his throat. “I get it.” He sat down next to Odra and Garl, keeping an eye on the menacing gargoyle. “There’s a caravan coming into town next week from the west, bearing my father’s insignia. There will be guards, do what you have to in order to deal with them. I don’t care what you do with most of the belongings- burn them, keep them, sell them, but I only ask that you retrieve a necklace and give it to me. It’s silver with a large sapphire at the throat. I’ll pay you one hundred gold now, and another two hundred when the job’s completed.”
Odra twisted her face before turning to Garl. “Sound like a plan?” she asked.
Garl only grunted.
Odra turned back around and gave a thumbs up. “Got it. Now scram, Like I told you earlier, we were in the middle of a conversation, and you were fucking rude to interrupt.” She shooed Sterling away before turning back to her friend, who was back to looking like a nearly normal statue. “Where was I? Oh yeah, you were inside passed out and getting your face doodled on by a bunch of bards. Which you really shouldn’t have gotten so drunk, I’m eighty percent sure a few of them wanted to jump on your stone c-”
Right, time to go. Sterling threw the initial payment on the table and practically bolted out of the door. Odra waited until he was gone before she leaned in close to Garl.
“Sooooo… how much you want to bet that the necklace he’s talking about is worth way, way more than two hundred gold?”
Garl smirked. “Safe bet, since it’s for the governor,” he agreed.
“Goodie. I’ll work on the story about not being able to find it, you’ll back me up with your scary face.”
“And what is my scary face?”
“Your scary face is your face all the time.”
Garl rolled his eyes before grabbing on Odra’s ear and roughly pulling on it.
“OW! Ow, lemme go, I’m sorry! Ouch! You’re gonna make me spill my beer, lemme gooooo!”
This is a series of short stories I've written set in a fantasy world inspired by my adventures in DnD and Pathfinder. I'm really, genuinely proud of them, so if you like them too, it'd mean a lot to me if you shared this first chapter <3
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Tara’s fingers froze over her keyboard. She knew what she wanted to say, but how to start it…
Don’t think too hard about it, or you won’t do it. Just share your story.
She took another sip of her matcha latte before settling her fingers on the keys and starting where it began.
~*~
I contracted it from my sister.
I was seven years old. I lived a normal life. I had three siblings, two brothers, one sister (who I’ll refer to as Kathie, it’s not her name but it’s close.) Kathie was sixteen and she was my hero. Kathie was my first word. Kathie always looked out for me. I wanted to be Kathie when I grew up.
Kathie died not knowing she was positive. No one knew she was positive, I mean, how could they? She didn’t waste away, which would’ve been a clear head’s up. It was a car accident. The theory was that she fell asleep at the wheel, which is why she went right into that tree. She would’ve been gone instantly. No pain. But she was gone. And it shattered me.
I didn’t want to go to school. I didn’t want to see my friends. My parents tried everything they could to get me to engage with the world again, but I just didn’t want to. I wanted Kathie again.
And so when she came back… I was happy.
It happened about a week or so after her funeral. I can’t remember how long. I was laying in bed, staring at the ceiling, wishing so hard that my sister could come back. That I could crawl into her bed with her right now and tell her I loved her, that I missed her.
And then there was a knock at my window, and there she was.
She looked just the same she did at her funeral, long black hair pinned neatly back, wearing that pretty pink dress she was supposed to be wearing for a school dance she never got to go to. She smiled as I looked at her and her lips moved. Although I couldn’t hear the words, I knew what she was asking.
Can I come in?
Of course she could. I sprang to my feet and ran to the window, throwing it open and jumping into my sister’s arms. She was back! Kathie was back! I was so happy… I didn’t know. By morning, she was gone, and I would’ve believed it was a dream if my window wasn’t still open.
People didn’t talk about vampirism twenty years ago. I mean we still have trouble talking about it now. And as a little girl I didn’t know not to trust the dead coming back to see you.
I can’t remember the biting. They didn’t even leave scars, which I’m sure many of you know. I just remember my sister being in my room every night, coming to visit me, stroking my hair and letting me cry into her lap. I didn’t tell my parents, it became my little secret. Kathie came to see me, not them or my brothers. And I felt happy again.
I didn’t feel better though. I don’t blame my parents for not noticing, I did as a teenager, but as an adult, I understand they had a lot going on. They’d also lost their daughter, and they had three remaining grieving children to handle. At least I was happy enough to go back to school, even though there were signs things weren’t right. I was falling asleep in class, I had very little appetite, I became pale and more lethargic. But these were chalked up to grief, to still dealing with the loss of my sister, and no one asked any questions.
Not until I was asked to help solve a problem at the board and I fainted dead away when I stood up.
I woke up in the hospital with an IV drip and a kindly priest asking about Kathie.
It took a while for me to open up. I felt guilty, like I knew something was wrong. But Father Taggart was gently persistent, and soon I told him everything I could about Kathie’s night time visits. I’d learn later my parents were outside the room the entire time, bawling their eyes out. They’d already lost one daughter, and they were much closer than anyone knew to losing their other one.
I’ve seen other posts on the forum talking about Father Taggart, good and bad. In my experience he was- he is, very good at what he does. But he is very traditional in his method, meaning that yes, I did have to be present for Kathie’s exhumation and slaying.
I wasn’t the only little girl there. They’d confirmed Kathie had been feeding off of, including myself, four girls between the ages of six and ten. Two of the others did attend, the final one refused. I think her parents took her to a hospital out of state to be treated.
I remember they opened her coffin and the room shuddered. Kathie had been dead for over three months at that point and she looked like she’d just laid down for a nap, her body appeared that fresh. The only differences between when she’d been laid to rest and now was that her lips were crimson and the front of her pretty pink dress was spattered in blood. My mother fled the room sobbing, my dad gripped my shoulders so tight it left bruises for the next week.
Father Taggart whispered a prayer over the still body before he took the wooden stake from his coat and drove it right into her chest. I screamed and lunged forward instinctively, that was my sister, he was attacking my sister-
Kathie’s eyes opened wide and her lips parted in a feral snarl. Her fangs were so long they looked like knives. She grabbed at Father Taggart’s arm, but he was calm as he pushed the hair from her face, still saying his prayers, and pushed the stake the rest of the way in. Blood poured from Kathie’s mouth as her eyes rolled back in her head and her body went limp. Father Taggart backed away, calmly said amen.
“And now she will be burned.”
I don’t remember her being burned. Either my parents decided I didn’t need to be present or I blocked it out of my mind.
But it was still too late for me.
Thank god the other girls hadn’t been infected, I’ve read the horror stories of lawsuits aimed at the surviving family of vampires. People were angry though- furious. But my parents didn’t care about that.
After several blood tests and a bone marrow sample, the doctors confirmed I was vampirism positive. That when I died, I’d rise just like Kathie and start preying on the living, draining them of their blood and potentially passing vampirism onto them.
Things changed after that. Kathie had initially been memorialized in our home, but when I returned from the hospital, she’d been almost entirely erased from our lives. Family photos with Kathie had been taken down, her room had been packed up and her things donated, it was like she’d never existed. Some of this was, yes, suggested by Father Taggart. It’s a way to cleanse the house from the vampire’s darkness. But I think they were also angry at Kathie, and where else could that anger go?
Kids were cruel. The word spread quickly about Kathie’s disinterment, and it didn’t take long for people to figure out why. Kids called me all kinds of names, ‘blood sucker’, ‘vampire baby’, but the parents were even worse. I wasn’t invited over anymore to kid’s parties, some people even requested their children be transferred out of my class because they were scared I would pass it on.
My parents tried to explain to their friends and peers that vampirism cannot be passed on until I died, but people didn’t care. I was a threat. I was a monster in the making.
We moved the moment my dad got a new job, we went across the country, we got a fresh start. I wasn’t allowed to talk about Kathie, if I did I was sent to my room. One time my mom even slapped me across the face for bringing up that it was her birthday- she regretted it, I could tell the moment she did, but the damage was done.
Kathie wasn’t apart of our lives anymore. She wasn’t even allowed to exist.
I miss her still, quietly, but I do. It wasn’t her fault. She didn’t know she was vampirism positive. She never would’ve done the things she did if she was alive, if it was really her. There’s a little memorial in my home now, hidden in a closet. My parents didn’t destroy all the photos, and when I moved out, I took them with me. They’re on that memorial now. I know lots of people blame the person that infected them, and I don’t fault them that, but… I just can’t.
I’m twenty-seven now. I’ve changed my name, I’ve done my best to get on with my life. I even date, which I know is a big hang up for some vampirism positive people. But I will say, the moment I let my date know I am vampirism positive, I tend to get ghosted. They usually act nice to my face about it, but the moment I get home I see I’ve been unmatched on whatever dating site we met on and my number’s been blocked. Maybe they’re scared of how I’ll react, that I’ll suddenly sprout fangs and leap at them, those ridiculous stereotypes.
I’m here now because I have become a teacher. I teach third grade, I love it… but one of my students’ parents found out. I don’t know how exactly, but they confronted me about it last Friday after school. They screamed in my face, called me a monster, asked how I could lie to everyone about this and put their children in danger.
I sometimes doubt that myself. Maybe I am dangerous. Maybe I am a monster.
But when those thoughts creep in, I remind myself that I am taking every precaution I physically can. Right now, I am like every human being in the world. With the drugs out there today, I’ll even be able to have children and they’ll be fine. When I die, I likely won’t rise for a few days, giving plenty of time for my body to be burnt at a holy site and my ashes spread in a river. I made those arrangements when I was eighteen.
That parent will be going to the school board this week- I don’t know when. The administration does know I’m vampirism positive and they claimed they’d have my back, but this parent has a lot of pull with the other parents and even if they back me up for now, there’s no telling what will happen if this person takes this knowledge to social media. They might let me go just to stop the pitchforks and torches at their front door.
I hope my story doesn’t come off too much ‘woe is me’ or whiny. I could’ve had it a lot worse. But I just wanted to share what I’ve been through, maybe get some advice. I’m glad this place exists, and… yeah. Have a good day.
~*~
Have a good day? What a cringe ending. Tara finished off the rest of her matcha latte before clicking post. What the hell. It probably won’t get many replies. It did feel… nice to have this forum to vent on though. Her parents were avoidant as hell and she didn’t want to bother her brothers about it.
Vent over, she was going to use her Sunday to clean, clean, clean. No better stress relief in the world. Dishes were scrubbing spotless, carpet was vacuumed, her cat Cammy was brushed until her long fur was as soft as cotton. She’d all but forgotten about her post until that evening, when she was lounging in bed and checking her email.
Wow… that was a lot of notifications from the vampostive forum. Way more than she expected. Her heart rate nervously climbing, Tara clicked onto the first one from HeIsNotUndeadYet91.
Your story is a powerful one. It’s so much harder to cope when the vampire was someone you knew. Mine was my dad. He’d fed on me for almost six months before people figured out why I was sick. You’re not alone, TeachingWithVamp. You have done nothing wrong, and you’re a good person.
Tears sprouted in Tara’s eyes as she started scrolling through the replies
IwontBiteYouYet: Wow!!! What a coward to just chase you down after school to yell at you. They might’ve gotten that info illegally, you gotta figure out where the leak is and get. a. lawyer. Your medical information is YOUR business.
OddBiter: I always get ghosted too. But hey it could be worse- you could be dead lol. In all seriousness, hang in there. You’re going above and beyond to have yourself cremated and scattered in a river, and you are not a threat right now. The only threat is that crazy Karen who’s trying to out you.
CrimsonBeeKeeper: If you need a lawyer, I have a list of lawyers that specialize in vamp positive clients and the prejudice they face. I bust them out whenever I see situations like this. Don’t back down, you’re a fighter, keep fighting!
GothandalsoVampire: Gooodddd, times like this I really do wish I could be a vampire NOW so I could scare some sense into them. These people are uneducated on purpose, a google search tells you how not dangerous a vamp positive person is while alive. Hell, even if you dropped dead in class you’d be just a corpse until at LEAST nightfall. And I’d hope you’d be discovered by then otherwise the school district has a lot more problems than you being vampositive.
666Vampire666(Mod): You Are Not Alone. Remember that. We’re building a community online for us, so we can talk openly about these problems. Make sure to check that resource tab for groups local to your area as well as legal sources to help with illegal termination due to ableism. It’s a hard fight being us, but we are HERE, and this curse doesn’t go away by ignoring it. It goes away by education and by being true to yourself.
Tears came down Tara’s cheeks until she couldn’t cry anymore. But her chest felt lighter, better. Things were going to be crazy next week when that parent went to the board, but she didn’t feel so scared anymore.
I was only about seven or eight, so forgive me if my memories are a bit foggy. It happens when the decades pass. I don’t even remember Andrea all that well. People never had anything bad to say about her, she was a teacher, she was a sweetheart, and she and her husband had a little one on the way. Everything was going right.
And then our street was filled with police cars, and the Sawyer door was covered in yellow tape, and a black bag was taken into the ambulance while Malachi had to be held back as he screamed his wife’s name.
Malachi had been out with his friends, and rather than drive home drunk, he did the responsible choice of sleeping over. He’d called Andrea and told her he couldn’t make it back, and she’d apparently taken it pretty well. When he got home that morning though, the door was hanging open and he knew what he’d find inside wouldn’t be good.
Andrea was found in her bed, her throat ripped open, her body almost completely drained of blood. It had been everywhere, people said, smeared on the walls, sprayed on the ceiling, it was a true horror show. She’d been dead for hours. No hope for her, or the baby that was weeks out from joining the rest of the world. Malachi had been a suspect initially, but he was cleared quick enough. Nevermind the cast iron alibi, he was a man destroyed by his wife and child’s death.
I remember the visitation at least. It was the first time I’d ever seen a dead body, Andrea’s corpse all dolled up to hide how she’d been brutalized by a stranger in the night. No one in the town could think of anyone who’d want to hurt an innocent woman like that. ‘It must have been a drifter killer,’ people whispered. Not one of our neighbors.
But life went on. Andrea was buried. Malachi left town, taking bare essentials from his home before disappearing to start his life over somewhere else. The case went cold and then froze over as the years went by.
The only thing that gave people pause was when Viola Malone rolled a baby stroller through town.
No one even knew she’d been pregnant, but well, no one really knew much about Viola. She was quiet, dressed plainly, acted plainly. She’d had two pregnancies in the past, both ending in stillbirths. She didn’t even have a job other than keeping the graveyard records maintained and orderly. Viola was nobody special.
Her husband had a tendency to cause a bit more of a stir, as Luke was a drinker and a bit rough around the edges. He was a jack of all trades, bouncing around from job to job and doing all right work until he lost his temper or showed up late hungover. The only consistent work he got was at the cemetery as a gravedigger. Not a job anyone really dreams of having, but it was work, and it paid some of their bills and kept them fed.
I do remember seeing that stroller. We were in the grocery and my mom gasped. “Viola- who is this?” she asked as she spun around, eyes bulging out at the contents of the stroller.
Viola puffed up with a little pride. “This is Felicity. She’s our little miracle,” she said as she pulled down the blanket to reveal a snoozing baby with round cheeks and a swath of dark hair sticking up from her otherwise bald scalp. The little one yawned and stretched her little arms before opening her dark blue eyes.
She was cute as a button, but by this point I had a few siblings, so babies were old hat. I was just ready to continue our shopping, but my mom spent what felt like a million years gushing over the contents of that stroller, congratulating Viola, asking if she thought the baby looked more like her or like Luke, and I almost wanted to say Felicity looked like neither of them…. Which was true, but even back then I knew not to interrupt talking adults.
Viola and Felicity ended up going on their way and so did my mom, and when we got home she went right to the telephone. I was smart enough not to interrupt talking adults but too curious not to listen in on conversations, so I posted myself around the corner and waited and oh boy. I wasn’t the only one who noticed how different Felicity looked from her mom.
Mom’s theory was that Felicity had been adopted. It made sense, they’d already had two failed pregnancies, and Viola hadn’t looked pregnant before, so why not adopt a little one? Mom’s friend Carol had a far more tantalizing idea that Viola stepped out on Luke and was now trying to pass off the baby as Luke’s. Cruel, but not completely out of the question. The most malicious theory came from Mom’s sister, my Aunt Ginnie- she thought that Viola stole the baby from somebody, either a church doorstep or she snuck into a hospital nursery to get that baby she’d always wanted. Obviously Mom told her to shush up, there’d been no report of kidnapped babies and it was cruel to accuse Viola of something so terrible. She’d been through enough, there was no need to spread rumors… like Mom wasn’t doing the exact same thing with talk of adoption, but at least hers wasn’t so mean spirited.
Rumors got passed, but Viola didn’t seem to notice them, and even more surprisingly Luke didn’t pay them any mind either. No one considered Luke to be excited about much anything except when he was at the bar on payday. But Luke was about as dedicated a daddy as any child could want. He’d show off pictures that bulged from his wallet, talk about how smart she was and how she was just a gift from heaven. He was still a bit of a drunk, but he carried himself differently now that he was a father.
But time kept going, and people found other things to whisper about. I went to school, I played with my friends, I didn’t think much about the Malone family.
They didn’t really cross my mind until about seven years passed and I was the age girls start being asked to babysit for the families in their town. Lo and behold, the Malones needed someone to watch Felicity on a Saturday night, and I wanted twenty bucks. Easy money, it wasn’t like Felicity was a baby that needed constant supervision. Just pop cartoons on the TV, order a pizza for dinner, and things would be smooth sailing.
I arrived early to the Malone’s to make a good impression and the impression I got from them was death. I mean, they’d never put much work into their yard in the first place, but I put one foot on the brown grass and I thought I’d stepped on something breakable with how it crunched underfoot. The trees were bare despite it being midsummer, the flower garden was bare. There was a doghouse, but it was empty.
Viola answered the door and she looked like she’d aged twenty years since I’d seen her last, the roots to her hair gray and her face sagging with wrinkles. “Hello, Polly! Come on in, the pizza’s already ordered, Felicity’s watching TV. We’ll be back around midnight, the phone numbers are on the fridge, don’t be afraid to call!”
Viola and Luke scooted out real quick and I was left with Felicity.
I remembered thinking she looked like a real live version of Snow White. Pale skin, ebony black hair, and the widest blue eyes I’d ever seen. She sat on the couch, watching some kind of war documentary as she brushed her doll’s hair. I cleared her throat to get her attention. “Hey, Felicity, do you need anything?” I asked, not expecting much.
Felicity smiled and the hair on my neck went straight up. She looked ready to say something and…
I… I still don’t remember what happened after that. I didn’t remember anything else about that night. The next thing I knew, I was waking up in my bed the next morning with what felt like a bad flu bug. I was completely drained of energy, I could barely hold my head up to drink some of my mom’s chicken noodle soup before I fell back and almost passed out. I was like that for over a week, sleeping most of the time away.
The Malones sent their well wishes but I wasn’t allowed to babysit for them after that. It wasn’t like I was outright forbidden from it, but when Viola called a month later asking for a babysitter again, my mom picked up the phone and made up an excuse about us being ‘out of town’ so I couldn’t help out this time. News to me, but that last minute camping trip was a lot of fun.
I think my mom’s theory at the time was that the house was gross and because of that I got sick, but as I scraped what little memories I had, I didn’t remember the house being filthy. The carpets were vacuumed, there wasn’t a mountain of dishes in the sink. There was just me and Felicity. And she wasn’t sick. She was one of the healthiest kids in town, an independent little sprout who said her ‘pleases’ and ‘thank you’s’ and always smiled at people passing by.
I didn’t feel good when she was around though. Whenever I saw her with one of her parents or playing at the park, I felt like a prey animal, always on guard and wanting to leave as soon as we noticed each other. I didn’t tell anyone about that, it was stupid. Felicity was just a little girl and I was a teenager, how could I be scared of a little girl?
It wasn’t just me though. Girls rarely babysat for the Malones more than once, and they never went back more than twice. Shockingly the rumor mill passed that fact over. It wasn’t talked about. People just didn’t stay alone with Felicity.
But my life wasn’t ruined by that strange little run in with Felicity. I even got other babysitting gigs, ones I didn’t have blank memories about. I grew up. And so did Felicity.
Not all of Felicity’s friends did though. She did have plenty of them, such a vibrant, charming girl was probably the most popular girl in her classes when she started going to school. My little sister Danielle was one of them, talking about how ‘cool’ Felicity was and how she would come up with so many fun games for them to play on the playground, although for the most part it sounded like Felicity was just lining them up to tell them make believe monster stories. A few times Danielle had nightmares because of that, and the teacher had to talk to Felicity about the kinds of movies she watched, but not much else was done. The other kids just liked Felicity too much.
And as the months went by, kids started getting sick. It was subtle, slow. Just being harder to wake, or being a bit slower some days. Even Danielle got the same ‘bug’ I did once, her little face pale and sweaty as her bloodshot eyes rolled back in her fevered head. She was okay after a few days, but not every kid was so lucky.
There’s no proof behind it. But between the ages of eight and eighteen, four of Felicity’s friends died from issues related to their wasting away. One drowned because she fell off a dock and drowned in just a foot of water. The other three just became walking corpses, shambling about until they finally fell into their coffin for a permanent slumber.
I just knew Felicity was connected to it. That little girl was wrong in a way I couldn’t put into words, that made me feel like prey and made me want to run and hide whenever I made eye contact with her across the grocery or when we passed on the street. I did what I could to keep Danielle away from her, but it was hard.
When Felicity was eighteen, I was twenty-five. I was in college, about to head to medical school. I was ready to get out of my small town and far away from the Malones. Luke and Viola were shut ins by this time, Luke no longer went to the bar and any time Viola went anywhere it was with Felicity helping her every step of the way.
It was the wee hours of the morning after their highschool graduation that I got a call from Danielle. I can still remember the clock glaring 1:43 at me as I stumbled to the phone. I didn’t even properly answer the phone, I just grumbled ‘Yeah?’ into the receiver.
Danielle’s quiet, scared voice on the other side of the line jolted me awake better than any cold shower.
“Polly, come get me. I’m scared. I’m at the Malone’s house.”
It would’ve taken hell to stop me from getting to my baby sister. I didn’t even throw my clothes on, I just threw a coat over my pajamas and hopped in the car. The streets were dead quiet as I raced to the Malone home.
I entered that house and for the first time since I was a kid, I thought about Andrea and Malachi Sawyer, how he felt walking into a house where he knew something horrible had happened.
And something had.
I tripped over the first body thinking it was a kid asleep or passed out drunk on the floor. But my shoes squelched as I stepped into a puddle, and after reaching around blindly for the light switch and flicking it on, my vision was filled with blood and gore.
The kid at my feet was not my sister, it was her boyfriend James. His glassy eyes stared up at me, mouth still parted in shock as his head tilted back to show off his slashed neck.
I screamed. I wet my pants. I ran deeper into the house for both a phone and to find Danielle. I found more bodies. All teenagers, all with their throats ripped open, not one of them expecting what fate came for them. I splashed through puddles of blood screaming my sister’s name, the trail of carnage taking me to the backyard.
There were some kids out there that were still alive, trapped in a vacant state, staring into the sky with pupils blown out so badly their eyes looked black. Other kids had their hands clamped to their bloodied necks, moaning and begging for help.
In the center of it all was two figures. One of them was a man, tall, with pure white hair that stretched down past his waist, and the other was Felicity. The two were embracing like a family reunited. At Felicity’s feet was Luke, bloodied, trying to hold his mangled neck together as blood gushed out between his fingers. He tried to say something, but it just came out as a wet gurgle.
Felicity didn’t even look twice at the man who raised her. She just held onto the white haired man’s arms and the two rose into the sky. I could barely believe my eyes, I thought I’d been drugged, but as they raised into the air, I had an eerie feeling I’d seen something like that before… of Felicity flying, lips spreading apart to reveal sharp fangs, ready to pierce my throat and drain my life away.
I couldn’t make myself move until they were out of sight. Once they were gone it was like a spell was broken and I remembered why I’d come there. I ran through the backyard, checking each of the moaning bodies to see if one of them was Danielle.
I found Danielle hidden in the dead forest behind the Malone home. One of her pupils were blown out and she was slurring worse than a sailor, but she was alive. We called 911. The cops asked me what happened, and I couldn’t tell them. Danielle was an even worse witness, talking about how Felicity just raised her hands and told everyone she needed to feast before everything went hazy. Danielle would be diagnosed as having had a stroke, and people theorized she along with the other kids had been drugged.
Thirteen kids didn’t make it out of the Malone home alive. Both Luke and Viola were also gone. Viola was found dead in her bed from late stage organ failure while Luke had bled out in the backyard. People wanted answers, but there wasn’t really any to be found.
But I found an answer. I found an answer that I’ve not told anyone before.
I joined in on the efforts to clean up and box all of the Malone family things, they didn’t have any other relatives and someone had to do it. I let the hazmat guys handle the bloody crime scene, I made myself busy in other places. I found a lot of things. Learned a lot about the Malone family. For example, Luke kept a journal. I never figured a man like him to write down his thoughts anywhere, but I was mistaken. He wrote in his journal almost every day, even if it was just a little blurb about how he could go for a good steak or that it was ‘pissing it down’ outside.
I couldn’t resist the temptation to go back and find the entries around Felicity’s birth date. People had said all these kinds of things when Felicity came into their lives, about her being illegitimate or adopted. It took some digging, but I found a near two decades old journal, and the days around Felicity’s arrival were filled with hastily scribbled text.
‘Went out to the yard to make sure none of those kids were causing hi-jinks and troubles. I couldn’t believe my ears. The docs said the baby couldn’tve made it, momma was dead’n’cold by the time paramedics showed on up. But I heard it. I heard her cryin. I know what it had to be. I grabbed a shovel and dug it up, and I broke open the coffin and there she was between the legs. A newborn baby. Just a little girl, a black cord coming out of her belly and all covered in blood. I picked her up and she was so cold and shivering I put her in my jacket so she could get warm.
The doctors never count on miracles. Viola’s got her all cleaned up and we have her in the crib we made up for the babies that never happened for us before. I don’t know where her papa’s at or how to find him. Maybe this would be too painful for him to know. Maybe this was how it was supposed to be.
Viola wants to call her Felicity after her momma. Good enough name. Going back to the yard to fill up the grave. Don’t want anyone thinking the wrong thing. If Malachi comes back I’ll have to think about telling him but until then, welcome to the world Felicity Malone. I’m your papa Luke and I love you more than the sun loves the moon.’
After I read that entry, I went through Viola’s impeccable records, each with a photo of the deceased. I’m surprised no one noticed it before…
That Felicity Malone looked just like Andrea Sawyer.
Hello Ghosts, Ghouls, and Fools. Tonight I present to you an opportunity to make the holiday month... a lot more chilling.
I have devised a list specifically for the month of December, from the 1st to the 31st, to challenge those who love to create mysteries, monsters, and phenomenons for Monster of the Week. Each day a new prompt, ready to be fulfilled by anyone and everyone. However, you are not restricted to just that day- if you are late to submitting or would rather do another day, please feel free to do so!
If that seems enticing to many but those who would rather do art or produce a story instead, you may do so with this list!
Write a mystery, a phenomenon, or a monster based on the daily prompt. Depending on the context you may have to trigger/content warn, but aside from that all are welcome with no restrictions.
Those who wish to participate shall do so with this tag: #MOTWHolidayHorrors. I (Digi) shall be keeping an eye on it throughout December and possibly January in the event there are any stragglers.
We hope to see you soon... and watch out in the snow.
1. Beachside retirement community where the majority of the residents are kraken-worshipping cultists.
2. Little village surrounded by woods where folks hunt but they don’t eat. The thrill of the chase is all it takes to satisfy them—call it a power, or call it a curse.
3. Far northern outpost on the icy tundra. Sometimes it’s there, sometimes it’s not.
4. Ghost town built in the shadow of the Red Cathedral. It’s just a big rock formation, except when the desert sun hits it just right. The gothic arches and flying buttresses shimmer into existence, and the few remaining residents shuffle inside for a midday mass.
5. Old country hamlet where they’ve come to rely a little to heavily on the wishing well. It works, of course, but at a cost.
6. Former coal mining town where more houses than not are occupied by the ghosts of those who met their untimely end down in the mines.
7. The last little settlement on your way up to the peak of the tallest mountain in the region. Maybe it’s just that you’d have to be crazy to live all the way up here, but the locals have all kinds of stories about the unnatural creatures that lurk in the shadows. Bigfoot, werewolves, you name it.
8. Farming town where folks don’t find crop circles in their fields anymore, not since them aliens bought up their own little plot of land and settled down on it.
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