This blog is for me that others may read. I spend at least an hour on each prompt then go back and edit it then post it. If I come back to it I come back to it but if I don't then oh well. I have so many stories in my head and get depressed if I don't write something so this is more therapy for me. Enjoy!
Writing Prompt - Dialogue:
"Please let me in dear, it's cold outside."
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"My blood type is feisty."
Never talk to strangers. That's the universal rule. Not in the Ancient world. Strange, weary travelers could count on the hospitality of others to provide a warm bed for the night. Even when vampires were common knowledge humble people couldn't help themselves but be good Christian neighbors. Living in Queen Elizabeth Tudor's England hospitality is a must. When your father's a vampire hunter you get wise. I buried him recently. For 7 days exactly. A woman shouldn't be left on her own and should marry when her guardians had passed but I wasn't raised like a normal woman. As the daughter of a vampire hunter I should know better. I should have known better...
The winter wind was howling at my door. My cabin was sturdy against the raging frosty gales. I had friends over from the town. They sought to keep me company. Ferdinand among them. He had beautiful green eyes. They had all gone to sleep. I was up just cleaning up the table from dinner when I heard a rapping at the door. At first I thought it was nothing but a stray branch blown by the wind but it came again at the same rhythm. Not being a fool I gabbed one of the wooden stakes that we had kept hidden underneath the floor boards along with my crucifix. England may have been a Protestant country but crucifixes were still available for purchase. Carefully I approached the door. The same knock came again.
"Who's there?" I called. But no one answered except for the same tapping sound. I felt ready for anything as I placed my hand on the rope handle. At least I thought I was ready...
I flung open the door letting in winter's breath to see a hunched over figure. I thought I was losing my mind. Was it a ghost that I saw? My father, haggard and hunched over as if carrying a large weight. I buried him. I was there when I buried him...
"Father...," I felt my grip loosen on the stake in a moment of emotional weakness.
"Please, dear, let me in," he spoke weakly, "it's cold outside."
My heart was pounding, my throat dry, I was ready to invite him in until I remembered one of father's first lessons: Evil may only enter if you invite it in. I regained my senses, shaking off the wobbly feelings in my legs, gripping the stake tightly.
"You're dead," I stated in a hollow tone.
"I thought I was but God was not ready to take me," my father explained while coughing. "I woke up still alive in the coffin they placed me in."
"For 7 days...," I stepped back to keep out of his reach.
"Let me in, child," he pleaded again.
"No." I slammed the door in his face before he could say any more. But even in death my father was a persistent hunter. He refused to leave and kept tapping at the door. He began to cause a commotion. Ferdinand was the first to awake and ask what was going on.
"Jeanne," he yawned. "What's the matter? This noise would wake the dead."
"Funny you should say that..." My vampire father banged on the door demanding me to open the door and speak to him. Ferdinand had many questions but I told him to hush.
"Leave it be and he'll leave...," I was trying to convince myself more than Ferdinand.
"Jeanne...," my father called my name. "Child, let me in. I beg you. I'm so cold and hungry..."
"Leave, devil!" I cried out. I turned to Ferdinand and gave him his own stake.
"Why do you have these?" He asked.
"For occasions such as these," was all I could reveal for now. The banging suddenly stopped. Nothing but the howling wind. Ferdinand breathed a sigh of relief but I knew better. Just like that something crashed against the wall. My father had taken the axe from the tree stump outside. Why didn't I bring it inside?
"Jeanne!" Ferdinand grabbed onto me for comfort. I shook him off and gave him more stakes.
"Give these to Lizzy and Anna," I ordered. When he didn't move I pushed him growling, "GO! And take this with you." I gave him a silver flask of holy water. Ferdinand crossed himself then took the flask. By now Anna and Lizzy were awake. I went in search of the cross bow hidden with the other vampire hunting tools. Ironic that the weapon my father taught me to use since age 6 would be used against him. This cross bow could fire 3 arrows.
"Let me in, Jeanne," called my father. "Willful child!"
"I get that from you, Father," I cried as I loaded the cross bow with a thin very sharp stake. "Because we're blood I'll give you to the count of 3. Leave this place!"
But my father kept hacking at the wall, letting the winter air inside.
"1..." He kept chopping. "2..." He wouldn't stop until he devoured us all. "3..." With both eyes open and a heavy heart I fired, hitting my father right in the stomach. Then a stake hit him in the chest then the head. My father fell back, the snow muffled his fall. For a moment it was quiet except for the empty call of the wind. Was he truly dead? I threw on my cloak and took a silver crucifix from the floor board.
"Jeanne?" Ferdinand called.
"Stay upstairs," I ordered. I went outside and around the house to where my father lay. The three stakes poking out of him. I saw him twitch. His body spasmed when he saw me. His vampire appetite sensing blood near by. The axe was beside him. I knew I had to do one last thing.
"Jeanne...," my father spoke my name with such love but their was an emptiness in it. He was a shadow of the great man he once was.
I took up the axe. It felt heavier than usual but I could lift it.
"Jeanne... my child..."
"Forgive me, father..." Before he could utter my name again I brought the axe's blade down on his throat severing his head from the rest of his rotting body. I let out a great sob. The wind died down as if taking my father's damned soul with it.
"It's over...," I said trying to soothe myself. At least my friends were safe. I called to them as I entered the house my axe still in my hand. No one answered me. Those holes will need to be fixed. I went up stairs to hear a deathly quiet. There was one sound... a sucking, squishing sound... A sound my father said he had heard whenever a vampire was feeding... I came to find in horror that Anna and Lizzy were lying dead on the floor, throats torn as if by some animal. I looked to see Ferdinand sitting on the bed, lapping at his blood stained fingers like a satisfied cat with it's fresh kill.
"Hello, Jeanne...," Ferdinand's voice and eyes were cold, as cold as the walking corpse he was. How did I not see it?
"I was turned a few weeks ago by some traveler," Ferdinand explained. I stepped back but Ferdinand was quicker than me. He whooshed towards me and had his hand on my throat.
"So pretty, Jeanne," Ferdinand licked my face with his blood stained lips. "You were always so good. Good enough to eat." He bit into my shoulder, savoring my warm blood. I cried out in pain but that only gave him pleasure.
"I like it when they scream," he confessed. "I had to be quiet with Anna and Lizzy but with you I'll take my time."
"Why...?" I whispered. Ferdinand drank more of my blood but took a breath, "Your father was on my trail. He managed to kill my sire. I was so consumed with hatred that I wanted him to suffer. I wanted him to eat his own kin but wouldn't you know it? A killer who failed... at killing..." Ferdinand trailed off. He faltered.
"What...," he was befuddled.
"I'm not a lover of garlic and vervain," I explained with a triumphant smile. "But father insisted that I eat them every day... Sorry but my blood type is feisty. Too feisty for you."
Ferdinand toppled over, gargling and foaming at the mouth. I took up my father's axe then promptly separated Ferdinand's head from the rest of him. My father also taught me if you're going to kill someone then kill them, don't stand around gloating and talking about it.
You think you know evil? Sometimes you don't know evil until it has it's hand on your throat and teeth sunk into your flesh. And it leaves a terrible mess...
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