The Campers Nightmare - 1. Chapter 1

Title: Nightmares Alive
By: Rose Strailo
Authors Words: I love this story. It’s my first true gore story and a great way for me to explore that darkness that lingers in everyone. It’s not very often that I can…just relax and let myself write without fear of being criticized about what I put down and out. I hope that every one enjoys this story, horror filled as it is.
My thanks go to my wonderful beta/editors BeaStKid and Mattias. Thank you both.

It’s nothing special really, the cabin in the woods. It’s just wood and metal on a piece of land, the glass in the windows long knocked out by vandals and nature. The land it sits on is still owned by the Lanrou family, one of the first families that helped settle this town in the middle of nowhere. The cabins not much to look at, sitting there surrounded by dieing trees, the foliage surrounding it, brown and brittle. No animals go near it, finding little or no food there. I doubt that they would go near it anyway.

It’s foreboding, even when covered in sunlight. It gives you a chill that makes you look at it with more then a little trepidation. But then again, the atmosphere around the cabin may be due to our own minds providing it and because of the legend surrounding the cabin and the Lanrou family.

“Wait, what legend?” Abigail asks suddenly, the fire’s light dancing in her bright blue eyes as she smiles curiously at Lin, who was sitting across the fire from her. The others lean in, wanting to know the legend too.

It was the 8th annual senior camping trip for Jerome High School and the class of 2003 was on the outskirts of Jerome, Arizona, in the middle of the woods. It was the ‘no name’ woods, since no one had died in them or named them after themselves, like it was tradition in Arizona. The senior class president was the one who was leading this trip, right along side the AP English teacher, Mrs. Abigail Langon, her husband, the AP Math teacher, Mr. Alex Langon and the Gym teacher, Mr. Marcus Len. Every one was separated into five groups of four students and three teachers each, all in different areas.

There was Marisha, who was top of her class, right along with her best friend Lin. Both were from the original families and had strong ties to the community. Their best friend Lendra was also there. She had moved there when they were all 10 and had made fast friends with the two. While they were popular, gorgeous and athletic, she wasn’t. She preferred working on the school newspaper and doing her artwork. She was rather on the heavy set side, but still likeable all around.

Then there was the new student who had come from a boarding school somewhere in England. He never really told them where he came from, but he was pretty. Lin couldn’t take his eyes off the long, dark grey braid that hung down his back. His name was just as interesting. Sandi Arian Lanrou, the last heir to the Lanrou fortune and properties.

He had started school at the beginning of the year, bringing many eyes, both male and female, to his strangely androgynous looks. His black tilted eyes could bore straight into your soul and made him seem like he could see all your deepest, darkest secrets. It fascinated everyone around the fire, even as they looked at Lin, wanting to hear the legend.

“Alright, alright, I guess I can tell you. That is, as long as our resident Lanrou doesn’t mind,” Lin teases, smirking at Sandi. He puts his water bottle next to him and looks at Lin with a teasing smile.

“I don’t mind,” he answers, his voice floating on the soft breeze towards Lin, making the latter shake his head to get rid of the naughty thoughts that seem to pop up any time Lin spoke, walked…. Anytime he did something, really. It was annoying, but oh so welcomed.

“Alright then,” Lin says, smirking and leaning forward. “I’ll tell you the tale of the Lanrou cabin. It was built as a wedding present for Arish Lanrou’s young bride. It sits just inside the city limits, surrounded by the woods.

“It’s said that the foundation was bathed in the man’s blood. He had decided to build it himself with some help from the youths of the village. One night, as he worked on the floor, he was attacked by a creature that he described as ‘a human with glowing red eyes, the claws of a big cat and the teeth to match.’ He was terrified and laid up for weeks after. During that time, the cabin was continued to be built. The wood that was stained with his blood was torn up and burned, the red stain causing many to cross themselves.

“It’s also said that some of the blood got down into the ground, tainting the earth with it. They never did find out what creature attacked him, but they didn’t really look very hard. They knew that something from the old world had followed them, or so said the gypsies that came to find a new world,” he says, smirking at the enraptured looks. Leaning back, he sips his water and looks at Sandi, seeing that the pretty male had a half-smile on his lips as he watched the fire.

“So, don’t just stop there,” Abigail says, tossing a crumbled up napkin at him. “Don’t leave us hanging.”

“Alright, alright. Don’t get your panties in a bunch,” Lin snorts, laughing when Lendra stuck her tongue out at him, her dark eyes dancing with mirth. “Let’s see, after he was able to start working on the cabin again, it was nearly complete. It was much bigger than it is now, but not by a whole lot, the third room that was being built having been torn down. He decided to start create the frames for the beds and the other furniture for the cabin before leaving to bring his wife to the West. It wasn’t very long before he was heading back to the East to pick up his wife.

“What he didn’t know was that she became pregnant due to their private reunion when he arrived there. They found out about 4 months into the trip. By the time they got back to Jerome, she was 7 months pregnant, a broken axle putting their time schedule back a few weeks. They came home to a house filled with the sweet scent of food and a stocked cellar. The eldest woman of the village and her oldest son had taken care of the cabin for him while he went to collect his wife.

“What the happy couple didn’t know and what the woman and her son didn’t tell them was that a wolf of pure black with blood red eyes would watch the cabin at night and would try to attack all those who dared to step outside of the cabin during the night. The woman thought that it was a creature that the gypsies called a strigoi, or a vampire. They had heard about vampires that changed shaped, but they never thought that they would see one.

“But now, it seemed that one fixated had on the cabin and probably had fixated on Arish too. But then, it wasn’t that odd, she had supposed. The animals of the forest seemed to trust him, even when he went hunting much like the original people of the land did, with crossbow and arrow. He may have been rich back East and quite powerful, but he was just a normal man trying to settle down and survive, and that included hunting,” Lin says, once more stopping to take a drink of water.

“I’ll take over from here,” Marisha says, moving to sit next to Lin, a bag of marshmallows in one hand and a dual prong long neck bar-b-que fork in the other. Removing a marshmallow and spearing it onto the fork, she continues with the legend. Lendra reaches over and steals a marshmallow as Marisha starts.

“So, as soon as they got home, they were met by the woman and her son, right? And the mother and son kept quiet about the odd and freaky wolf, correct? Well, what they didn’t know was that their troubles were going to start that very night. They had settled down for the night, the mother and son having gone to their own home, not even staying for dinner. Arish and his wife decided to go to bed early that night since they had to recover from the long trip.

“It wasn’t long into the night when they heard an eerie howl rent the air. It jerked the wife awake, but barely disturbed Arish at all. It made her worry that wolves were near the area, though there had supposedly been no sightings of them. She got up off the bed and went to the main room where she looked out of the window. All she saw through the glass that was created there was the dark woods that surrounded their house.

“She went to bed, but she couldn’t shake off a feeling that something had been out there watching her. This kept up for several more weeks and she was getting close to her due date. One night, she once more heard the wolf howl, but she was tired of being the only one that would get up and hear the howl. So she reached over and shoved her husband out of the bed. After he was awake, another howl was heard, something that had never happened before.

“So, being the smart man that he was, he got up, grabbed his shot gun, a lantern and went to the one window with a pane that was removable. Lightening the lantern, he removed the pane and looked out the area. What the wife didn’t realize was that since the glass had been made in the village instead of back East, it distorted the vision of a person and helped hide what was outside the cabin.

“Looking out of that hole, Arish saw red eyes glowing back at him. Taking aim, he shot at it. To him, he hit whatever it was that had the eyes. He told those who would listen to his story that he heard a yelp and the eyes disappeared,” Marisha finishes as she pulls her marshmallow out of the fire. Taking a couple of graham crackers and a piece of chocolate, she proceeds to make her a s’more and waves a hand at her two friends.

“I suppose I’ll continue with the story,” Lendra says, testing her own marshmallow with careful touches. “They thought that they were safe from what ever the thing was because they never heard a howl after that. The peace continued for several years and Jerome grew and became the mining town that it is now. Arish’s wife had a son named Lian Arish Lanrou and then a daughter they named Juliana Linna Lanrou before seeming to become weak and unable to bear another child after that. Arish was happy though.

“They continued to be happy with their lives, making money off a small mine that Arish had found, along with the bakery that his wife had opened to feed the various miners that came into and went through town. When their children had grown to the proper age and helped them, they noticed that something was quite different with Lian.

“He wasn’t like the other boys that ran around Jerome. Rather, he was serious and worked hard, but disliked going out into the sun. He was also pale, almost like the china doll that Juliana had received for her 10th birthday. He also never seemed to need much food, usually eating a few bites during meals, or skipping over lunch and eating a full meal at dinner. It worried his parents, but they pushed their concern aside.

“As the years passed, they added onto the shack, giving the children rooms on either side of the original structure so that they could have their privacy. The rooms are still there, but the doors are sealed up tight, or so they say. When Lian turned 18, strange things started to happen in the smaller mining camps that surrounded Jerome. They were just little things, like a sickness that spread around, causing many to stay in bed for a couple of days before becoming healthy.” Lendra pauses and tests her marshmallow before taking the graham cracker with the chocolate on it from Sandi, with a smile.

“What do you suppose it was?” Lin asks, looking over at the three teachers who were sitting back and listening with smiles.

“Who knows? It could have been a cold that was passed around, bad food or just mal-nutrition,” Abigail speculates, her husband nodding.

“We don’t really have many records besides journals of the gypsies that lived here, but most of them are written in Romanian and we can’t exactly afford to hire someone to translate all 300 of them,” Marcus says, leaning back, his long legs stretched out in front of him. Sandi nods and turns to the others.

“My family’s journals say that there was a batch of bread that had been made with bad wheat. Apparently Juliana dealt with the customers while Lian made the bread with his mother, but that one time, Juliana had to make the bread because their mother had fallen into one of her ill spells,” he says, causing Lin to become, once more, enraptured by his voice and tone.

“Wow. You guys still have those?” Alex asks, looking at Sandi with slightly wide eyes.

“Yes, Mr. Langon, we do. I’m planning on donating them to the museum once it gets the cases ready,” Sandi admits, turning his dark eyes to the other man.

“I can’t wait to see them,” Marcus says. The others nod their heads in agreement, smiling at the thought of a new piece of history to show off to the world.

“So, who’s continuing the story?” Lendra asks after a moment.

“I’ll do it,” Lin replies, shaking his head to clear of the fog of Sandi-induced lust from his head. Grabbing his water, he takes another drink before settling back and starting the story once more.

“For about a year, this continued to happen. People would get sick but would be fine after a couple of days. Then, animals started turning up dead. No rhyme or reason as to why. Not taking any chances, the carcasses were burned, which pissed off quite a few who were willing to take the chance of spoiled meat to have actual meat. After a while, the town started smoking any meat they got and one family started raising animals, including deer that they had found when young.

“Another year went past and more animal carcasses popped up. Each one was burned after they had one of the priests and a choviahani, a gypsy witch, to bless them, to drive away what the villagers perceived as evil spirits. It was scaring them beyond belief. They were ready to go back to the pagan gods just to be free of what they thought of as a curse.

“After two more years of this, the animals stopped dieing, but now, more and more people were starting to die. The gypsies couldn’t keep silent any more. They had to tell everyone what they thought was happening. They had their first mayor, Arish Lanrou, call a town meeting one night on the full moon.

“His daughter was also back from her honeymoon and so was his son, who had left for a few days to go to the next town over and had arrived just in time for the meeting. He came back with some much needed seeds and tools for the coming season, along with knowledge on how to keep the grains and other perishables fresh for the long winters. It was a gift, or so the villagers thought.

“During the entire council, the accusations were flying fast and furious. The gypsies were keeping quiet about the whole thing, at least until everyone was there. Once Arish had calmed everyone down, he started the meeting. He had the head of the gypsy clan tell everyone what they felt was attacking the animals and people. To say the least, the uproar was frightening when the chief told the towns people that it was a strigoi. It caused mass panic among the people and forced Arish to calm them down again,” Lin says, sitting back and staring at the fire.

“Wow,” Abigail breaths, her eyes wide. She had only moved to Jerome with Alex a while ago, so this was the first time she had heard the legend. It was simply amazing how these three worked so flawlessly with each other in telling it to everyone. It was also something amazing to watch and made her happy to be here, glad that she had agreed to be a chaperone for this camping trip.

“So, continue on, Lin. What happened next?” Sandi asks softly, turning his soft eyes to Lin, Marisha and Lendra.

“It’s my turn to continue the story,” Lendra says suddenly, moving from her seat on the log to the ground. “After the meeting, everyone went home, or so the Lanrous thought. In truth, most of the older and younger generations went home while those fit and healthy got together to hunt down the creature that was terrorizing them. They had enough of the pain and fear and they were going to take it down.

“The head of the gypsies, the very one who had told the others what was happening was the one who was leading this expedition to destroy the creature that was ruining their way of life. They weren’t going to let this thing get away with it and they knew who the Damphir was. As they stood around the field just a few minutes walk from that shack which still housed the family, they nervously looked around before nodding and heading for the shack,” Lendra says before stopping.

“After that, no one knows what happened that night. The only persons who got away that night were Arish’s wife, her un-born child and Lian. Arish, Juliana and her husband were all killed as Damphirs, before they were buried in that old crypt thing near the shack,” Lin finishes off, causing the others to groan softly in disappointment. “All we know is that the next morning things went back to normal and no one talked about it afterwards.”

“Wow,” Sandi breaths out softly. “I’ve heard bits and pieces, but my family is very particular when it comes to talking about that piece of history.” Everyone nods in understanding.

“I know that anytime anyone asked your parents about the legend they would brush it off and call it foolish and lies to slander the Lanrou name,” Marcus says, leaning forward.

“I say we go check out this shack. It’s supposed to be still standing right?” Abigail says suddenly, smiling at the others. Lendra nods and Marisha looks excited. Lin looks over at Sandi who was nibbling on his bottom lip.

“Why not? It’ll be fun,” Sandi says suddenly, looking up and smiling at them all.

“Alright then. Who’s coming with?” Lin asks, standing up and grabbing his jacket from behind him. Marisha and Abigail get up, leaving Alex, Marcus and Lendra sitting down.

“I’m not going to go. I’ve seen it too many times,” Lendra says, wrinkling her nose.

“I’m heading to bed as it is, so, night all,” Marcus says, getting up and heading over to his tent.

“I’m going to stay here. I need to set up one last tent for tomorrow so we don’t have to worry about bugs bothering us during meals,” Alex says, picking up a large, green object that looked like a duffle bag. The four nod and with Lin in the lead, they head down a small path with large flashlights in hand.

Walking along, flashlights bobbing around, they make small talk, mostly about what they planned for after high school and college. Lin made Sandi giggle quite a few times, causing Abigail and Marisha to roll their eyes at the two and smirk at each other. After a while, the two women were whispering to each other, while the two boys were walking ahead talking about college plans.

Soon, they were walking into a semi-cleared area where dead trees and plants surrounded the shack, just like it was told. Gasping softly at what was before them, they move closer to the shack. That was all they could describe it as. It was nearly falling apart, with the windows being nothing more than holes with wooden crosses in them. Even with their flash lights, the area was dark just like soup. It was hard for them to see, abetting the fear that made the goose bumps rise all over their bodies.

“Wow, I can’t believe that it’s still standing after all this time,” Abigail says softly, her voice loud in the silence. She flashes her light over the walls of the cabin, while the others shine theirs over the skeletons of the trees and bushes. Suddenly one of the lights catches the whiteness of a medium-sized building. It wasn’t shiny, but it did glisten slightly, causing them to wonder what it was.

“I think…that’s where Arish, Juliana and her hubby were buried,” Lin breaths out, his eyes wide.

“But why wouldn’t they just bury them?” Marisha asks, looking at Lin since he knew the most about the town’s history.

“It’s easier to check on the bodies this way,” Sandi says instead of Lin. “They checked every year for fifty years, making sure that they were truly gone.”

Abigail makes a soft noise of pity before moving to the shack with determined foot steps.
“Come on, let’s go,” she says to the other three who were hesitating in moving any closer to the shack. “Don’t tell me you lot are afraid,” she says, turning around and looking at them with a raised eyebrow.

“No, no, just cautious,” Lin replies, following her, moving his flash light around, his eyes taking in all the little details. Sandi and Marisha follow behind him, their flashlights also dancing in the dark. Abigail nods and smiles before heading to the cabin to see if the door would open.

Walking around the side, she finds it easily. Looking over it, she finds that the door handle was missing. Deciding to go with her gut, she pushes on the door and it opens with a groan of protest. She breathes out slowly and flashes her light into the dark interior, biting her bottom lip. She pointed her flashlight over the cobwebbed covered dishes, chairs, tables and what looked like a smashed crib. .

“Wow. It looks like they just upped and disappeared, don’t it?” Marisha says softly, flashing her light around the room too. Sandi steps in, noticing that the floor was covered in dust when his foot stirred up a small cloud of it. Moving farther into the cabin, he continues to play his light over the objects. Pointing it to the fire place, he frowns softly as he looks at the pile of wood that was scattered around it, along with what looked like ash.

“I think that they may have been attacked just after dinner had been eaten,” he says, his eye being caught by a small pot that sat overturned by the fire place. Walking over to it, he notices a dark spot that looked a bit rotten. “It looks like there may have been a short fight, destroying a few things.”

Lin nods and follows Sandi into the room with Marisha and Abigail trailing behind. Moving his light over the walls, he finds a couple of doors and moves over to one. Opening it up, he finds a room covered in dust, dirt and cobwebs. There was another crib there, this one smaller than the other. The bed was mussed, the sheets shredded, torn as if with a knife.

“I think I found one of the places where they were killed,” Lin calls out, walking in slowly, seeing a dark stain on the sheets. Reaching out, he touches it, the dust sticking to his fingers. The fabric under his fingers was stiff and smelled slightly rancid, like meat that had been sitting out in the sun for much to long. Pulling his hand back, he looks around, carefully stepping around the fragments of the crib.

Looking at the three chests sitting there, he moves over to one as someone flashes their light into the room behind him. Turning to the person, he smiles at Sandi who was shining his light around with a sad look on his face.

“Hey, how ya doing?” he asks softly. Sandi turned to look at him and sighed gently.

”I’m doing fine. I’m just so sad that my family never bothered to come here and fix things or clean things out,” he replies. Lin nods and turns back to the trunks.

“Hey, can you come over here and shine some light for me?” he asks, before putting his own flashlight into his belt loop. He hears Sandi’s soft footsteps walk up behind him and then a light begins to shine over his shoulder as he kneels down to work open the latches. Finally opening the first one, he coughs at the dust that rises with the loud squeak coming from the hinges.

Inside it he finds a skeleton of a small child, which makes him jerk up and back into Sandi, trying hard not to wrench at the sight and smell. It was dressed in a faded dress and seemed to be clinging to a hand-made doll. Red spots were all over the dress, looking like macabre flowers.

Sandi grasps Lin’s arm, the flash light trembling in his hand as he stares at the remains, horrified at the sight.

“Oh gods,” he says softly. “I had heard about an illegitimate child that came from Lian with a prostitute that he often visited back East. No one knew what had happened to her though. He never spoke of that night and we could never find his journal.”

Lin nods slowly before reaching forward and slowly closing the lid and turning to Sandi, who was looking paler then normal. “Come on. Let’s put you in a seat. I’m sure we can start a fire in the fire place,” he says softly, taking the flash light from Sandi’s fingers. The smaller male nods and they head out into the main room where Lin sits Sandi down onto his jacket. Putting down the flash lights so that they were pointing to the fire place, he moves over to it and picks up a bit of the wood. Poking the ash a few times to make sure nothing was in it, he then brushes it aside and piles the few pieces of wood down.

Pulling out a lighter and then looking around for a piece of kindle, he sighs before grabbing the stick. Holding the lighter to the stick, he slowly coaxes it to light before breaking it in half and coaxes that to light as well. Putting them onto the wood, he soon has a soft fire going. Looking around, he finally notices that Abigail and Marisha were gone.

“Where did the girls go?” he asks, shining the light around, seeing that the other two doors were open. Walking over, he sees ruined rooms beyond the doors. One of the beds was fine and perfectly made, just covered in a thick layer of dust, like everything else. Walking back over to Sandi, he kneels down and says “I’m going to look and see if they went to the crypt. The doors are easy to get open if you know how and a lot of times people will dare others to go in. I’ll be right back.”

“Alright,” Sandi replies, looking up at the other with large eyes. “I suppose I’ll stay here and sing, yes?”

“If you want,” Lin replies, standing up after picking up a flash light.

“It’s so you can know that I’m fine, if anything,” he says, smiling shyly up at Lin. “Thank you for going to look for them and starting the fire too.”

“No problem,” Lin says, smiling over his shoulder as he walks out the door. Behind him Sandi starts to sing softly. It sounded like a Spanish song. He wondered what song it was.

“No me abandones asi, hablando solo de ti. Ven y devuelveme al fin, la sonrisa que se fue. Una vez mas tocar tu piel y hondo suspirar. Recupermos lo que se ha perdido,” Sandi’s voice floats out of the cabin after Lin, as the latter makes his way to the white stone structure. Sighing softly, as his light shows him that the door to the crypt is open, Lin bounces up the two steps before pushing against the door to open it a bit more.

“Hello?” he calls out, slowly sliding his flash light over the walls, floor and ceiling, skipping over the large stone coffins that sat near the back. A sharp metallic smell tickles his nose and makes him wrinkle it in disgust. Stepping in, he hears a soft liquid sound under his foot. Looking down, his eyes widen at the sight of blood on the floor, and he quickly follows it to its source.

Reaching it, he finds Abigail staring back at him with wide, empty eyes; her body contorted into an unnatural position and her neck nothing more than strips of skin. He gags and frantically looks around for Marisha. He finds her leaning against the side of one of the coffins. Her sightless eyes staring at him, her clothes reduced to rags hanging off her body as she sat in a pool of her own blood; the last thing he sees before a shooting pain races through his head and the world goes black.

*********************

“Camping Trip Gone Wrong,” a male with long, dark hair reads out loud to himself, a cruel smile twisting over his lips. “Four students and three teachers went out for the annual Jerome High camping trip but only two students and two teachers came back. On May 15th, 2003 Marisha Laina, Lin Lein and Abigail Langon were found in the crypt of the original Lanrou family. No information on how they died was given out, but it was said that they died a bloody and painful death.

“Lendra Price, Alex Langon and Marcus Len were back at the camp site and didn’t realize anything was wrong until the next morning when they discovered that the other four were not in their bed-rolls. Going to the Lanrou cabin, they found Sandi Arian Lanrou in front of a dieing fire, sleeping with what is now known as the missing journal of Lian Lanrou and the last known journal of Juliana Lanrou. Soon after, they found the bodies of the other three in the crypt.”

Snorting the male picks up a wine glass full of thick red liquid and sips it a few times before continuing on with the story.

“No one is sure as to who has committed the hideous crimes but many are outraged and calling for blood. While being the only one to come out alive of the group, but having seen nothing, Lanrou is now in the hospital getting over the shock of not only finding the skeleton of what possibly could be the illegitimate child of Lian Lanrou, but also seeing the devastated bodies of his fellow class mates.

“He is unable and unwilling to speak about it to anyone and has written out what he remembers that night. The police are holding what it says for the time being. One other person disappeared from another group of campers and it is felt by police that the person who had killed the three had snatched up Marcus Kieler as well.

“Any information is requested,” he finishes with a smirk. Putting his paper aside, he looks at the bound boy in front of him who looks back with a dead look in his eyes. “Good toys are so hard to find,” he says to him. “And I was hoping for more from you, Marcus. I suppose I’ll have to wait until my beautiful descendent is ready for me, yes?”

Stepping more into the light, the imposing figure of Lian Ariash Lanrou stood over the slightly trembling boy. Kneeling down, he gently caresses Marcus’ face.

“You see, the gypsies were right when they thought that the Damphir was one of my family. But they had it wrong in thinking that it was father, Juliana and her husband. Such fools to touch my mate the way they did. Juliana’s husband only married her to be able to live close to me. You see, I had taken him as my mate a year before, after I had found out I had a 2 year old child. They raped him, those gypsies, saying that the mate of a Damphir shouldn’t be just killed. It should also be made impure,” he snarls before getting up, sweeping his hand against the glass and tossing it against the wall.

“They raped him as I laid unable to help him, reeling from the blow to my head. They did the same to Juliana and father, before shoving pieces of wood through their chest and removing their heads outside. My mother sobbed and begged them to stop, but they didn’t. They put the bodies of my family and my mate into the stone coffins. I cursed their families from that night on,” he says, finally calming down.

“I put myself into a sleep after making sure my mother would be taken care of. Her and our child. You see, mother wanted another child, but father wasn’t able to get it up for her, so I gave her the child that she so desperately wanted. That child was my life’s blood, allowing my line to continue since those damn idiots stuffed my daughter into the trunk after raping her. I wasn’t able to get to her in time either so I left here there,” he says softly, his voice sad.

“After that, I slept. And then, my dear descendent came to the land and woke me up. I found three delicious meals waiting for me. I admit, I went at them like a ravenous beast, but hey, I haven’t eaten for a few decades. Can you blame me? Then I saw him, my little Sandi. He was beautiful, laying on his side and curled up close to the fire, fast asleep. He had tired out, too much emotional stress. I left my journal and my sister’s journal for him to find. Soon, I will send him a note to tell him where to find the missing family papers and journals,” he finishes, walking over with a dark leer on his face.

“For now though, I believe I will feed and enjoy my time before I take a new mate,” he purrs.

Screams ring out in the large home as wolves howl in the distance, their mournful cry jerking Sandi out of a deep, medicine induced sleep. Shuddering, he curls up on his side and tries to drown the howls out and tells himself that there was no screaming on the under current of them.

Some more Authors Words: Some after notes, yes? Damphir are the half vampires that we ll hear about. Blade is one of them. The ones that so many call ‘Day Walkers.’ Damphir is the accurate term for half vampires.

As you can tell, I set my story in a place called Jerome. In all actuality, this is an Alternate Reality but Jerome is a real place. It was a mining town but kinda died off after a while. Somewhere between the late 1950’s and early 1980’s, hippies moved into Jerome, which by then was a ghost town. Since then, it has become a prospering tourist town with the original buildings still there and open for tours.

No, Gypsies didn’t come to Jerome, and no, I don’t know who helped settle it. If asked nicely, I can leave a link to a site about Jerome. Until then, enjoy. ^_^