“It should be obvious to you that I am not living with it. I had to do something.”
“Seth, I have heard some tales in my time, but this has to be the biggest wind-up ever. You expect me to believe that an actual real-life vampire came to you, forced you to tell some creepy urban legend to whomever you could group together? Then she kills them and just disappears? You really had nothing to do with this?”
The truth was not going to work on Rosalyn. She would ask for it, but only accept her version of the truth. Seth had to live with what had happened. Rosalyn wouldn’t believe that Seth felt he had actually saved lives. The vampire would kill, kill many, and kill indiscriminately. At least by roping Seth into her sick little game, he felt he had saved some people from dying.
At least he could comfort himself with that.
“I’m a peaceful person, Roz. I don’t know how else to convince you.”
With that, he calmly walked downstairs with a new sense of purpose. It was true. Mariana was going to help him put an end to the nightmare that one certain vampire represented. He could not remember a time when he felt more focussed than he did right now.
Rosalyn, of course, wouldn’t understand - but she would be grateful later. Seth pulled on a jumper and changed into his jeans. He looked deep into the shed until he found what he was looking for.
A saw.
A twenty metre length of rope.
A hammer.
A shovel.
A broom handle, to be later customised into a stake.
Being Sunday, he could stop off at the local church and obtain a jug of holy water. That would be essential for this task.
It was like a program running in his brain. Once he had picked those particular cards – The Fool, The Hanging Man, and Death – it was only a matter of time before they sent a subliminal message to his brain. He had heard or viewed these words this morning. Seth marvelled at the fact that Mariana was certainly unconventional in her methods, but definitely effective.
As he loaded the items into his car, Rosalyn continued the war of words, but he chose, for the most part; to ignore her, simply saying ‘That’s enough, Roz,’ on more than one occasion.
He knew from past encounters that his words fell on deaf ears, so the only thing to do was to make his way to the cemetery. Even if Ricky was working on a Sunday, if you called what he did work, Seth had no need of his services.
Thanks to Mariana, he could walk directly to the gravesite of that hated vampire. He could find her without Ricky’s help this time.
The cemetery opened at 9am. Seth had arrived at 8.55am. There were already some people waiting to get in. An old couple spoke to him.
“That’s so nice, a young man coming to pay his respects to the dead.”
Seth nodded gratefully, but he didn’t want to engage in conversation. Plus the saw edge was poking out of his bag. He thought the couple had seen it, but then decided maybe they hadn’t.
“Is that right son?” asked the man. “You’re paying your respect to the dead.”
“Yes, you could say that,” answered Seth.
“A relative?” asked the woman.
“Not exactly,” answered Seth. “More like an associate.”
“Can’t say I have ever paid respects to any associates I worked with,” grunted the man.
“Well I think it’s nice,” affirmed the woman.
Hurry up and open the gates Ricky, you lazy bastard, thought Seth. These two are really starting to grind my gears.
9.01am.
Finally, Ricky turned up and opened the gate. He looked like he had been drinking all night.
“Hey squire, you’re back again. No keeping you out of this place, is there? Much like Tom and Alice, I bet you’ll be climbing out of your grave once they put you in here.”
“Tom and Alice?”
“You were just talking with them, squire.”
“Yes, they were right here -huh?”
Seth turned around to where Tom and Alice had been standing, then back to Ricky. The old couple had gone. But they couldn't have gone that quick. There was, however, an overriding stench of death in front of the gates. Seth jumped back as he saw two stubby fingers lying on the ground. One had a long nail, the other was short.
“Ah…I’ll just get those, squire,” said Ricky. “Tom and Alice got behind with payments to these loan sharks and went on the run. Unfortunately, they ran out of time and money, and well, the sharks took some body parts as a down payment.”
Ricky grabbed the two fingers with his hand and shoved them into his pocket, and patted it down.
Seth’s heart was racing.
“Quite a cut you’ve got on your neck there, squire. Best be off to that grave of yours, before she gives you another one. Then I suppose I’ll be collecting more body parts, like your head for instance.”
“Do they pay you to insult visitors to the cemetery, Ricky?” snapped Seth, as he brushed past Ricky.
“No squire, those I give for free.”
In the distance, Ricky was shouting after Seth, but he ignored him and walked deep into the cemetery until he found what he was looking for. This time, there was no mistaking it. It was daylight, and the gravesite’s details were even clearer than the details in his dream.
The moss was replenished anew on the left corner of the stone, the name appeared to have been renewed also.
GRETCHEN BRADY.
1881.
That’s all it said. No birth date, no age, nothing else at all.
Hang on.
There was something else. Written on the back of the stone – written, not engraved were the words
May she rest in peace
The word in the middle was obscured by something. It was a liquid of sorts, with the consistency of tar.
He wiped it away, and the bag he was holding fell, with the saw blade protruding from it. It grazed Seth’s shin, and he cried out in pain. He could see what the author of that sentence had truly meant to say.
May she NEVER rest in peace
“Defaming a grave should be an enforceable criminal offence,” said Ricky, who ignored Seth’s obvious horror.
“Rick. Jesus Christ. Where did you just come from?”
“I was calling after you, but you ignored my warning.”
“Warning? I didn’t hear any warning.”
“No you didn’t squire. You were too busy getting away from me to listen. Very foolish of you.”
Seth was annoyed by the strange couple at the gate, Ricky’s odd behaviour of putting dismembered fingers into his pocket. Most of all, he was annoyed that Ricky had now caught up with him, and could wreck his plans.
After all, it was still very early in the morning, and most people who visited cemeteries would do so after they had been to mass.
“No point hanging around here then. What’s done, is done,” said Ricky cryptically.
“Out with it, Ricky.”
“I was shouting after you to simply wait until you had help with this grave. If you’re seen tampering with it, well, my boss wouldn’t look too kindly on that.”
“You can’t help me with this, Ricky. I need to do this myself.”
Ricky sighed. “Right then. At least I can keep watch for you.”
“You would?” exclaimed Seth. “I’d really appreciate that.”
Ricky looked above to a tree that stood on the grass verge, and retrieved a chair from it that he had previously stashed there.
He opened it up, and sat about six plots away from where Seth was going to dig.
“You’ve never dug up a grave before, have you squire?”
“You’re very perceptive, Ricky. No, I have never dug up a grave before.”
Seth jammed the shovelhead into the grass that covered the grave. Blood splattered his face as it gushed upwards from the plot.
“Jesus! What the hell?”
“That’s why I’m sitting back here, squire. When the dead don’t rest, the areas around them tend to squirt. If you
haven’t got a towel, I can get you one.”
“It’s alright,” said Seth, wiping his face with his tee shirt.
“How can a grave bleed? It doesn’t seem possible.”
“You’re a smart boy, squire. You can see for yourself what has happened. Are you going through with this? You still want to keep digging?”
“I don’t want to. I have to,” said Seth, who was preparing to swim in blood that was up to six feet deep.
Seth took a deep breath, and looked at Ricky one more time, who was clearly enjoying the whole spectacle.
The blood had receded, and gave way to soft earth underneath. Finally, he hit something hard.
“It’s the coffin,” Seth cried out.
“No, it’s not,” said Ricky, who had moved his chair to beside the open hole.
Seth threw the spade up, and moved the remaining soil with his fingers until it met the outline of the object below.
“It’s not straight – it’s more circular,” breathed Seth hoarsely.
“Yes. Yes it is,” said Ricky.
“Hang on, my hand – it’s sticking to it.”
Ricky kept a bemused look on his face the whole time. Seth’s clothes were drenched in blood that should have dried out long before that particular plot was filled. Seth had expelled about four feet of soil out of the plot, but with the blood seeping everywhere, he attempted to keep his footing by staying near the sides of the grave.
It was so difficult for Seth to reach downwards into the grave without losing his balance. So in the end, he lay on his side, parried the soil away with the shovel, and stuck his arm between the black soil and red blood.
The object was cold to the touch, and there appeared to be a hole in it that was small enough for Seth to poke a finger through.
“I’ve got it!”
Ricky looked blankly at Seth whilst he lifted the skull from the grave. It still had some hair attached to it, far more than Seth was expecting.
“Hey, look at that,” said Ricky. “Almost the same colour as my hair.”
He took off the cap he was wearing to confirm his point.
“I need to dig more,” said Seth. “The skull on its own is no good. I need to stake the body.”
“If you say so, squire.”
“I do say Ricky.”
“Can you hurry up and finish?”
“Are you in a hurry, Ricky?”
“I want to get to the police station and file a complaint.”
Seth pulled himself up, inch by inch, centimetre by centimetre from the grave. He was barely recognisable with so much blood and soil on his face and clothes. He was tired of digging up the grave, tired of Ricky’s strange behaviour, and just….tired from being tired.
“Yeah, sure Ricky, guilty as charged. I smash this grave up, and you can take me in. I’ll be sure to tell the cops your part in this also.”
Seth didn’t look in Ricky’s direction as he stood above Gretchen’s grave and jammed the shovel into the soil once more. The grave encircled the shovel head, and Seth tugged at the handle, only for the shovel appearing to be stuck.
“This grave is strange, Ricky.”
It seemed to have gone rather too quiet, and when Seth looked over at the chair Ricky had been sitting on, it had been placed back in the tree. Ricky was nowhere to be seen.
“So much for looking out for me,” said Seth.
He returned to the grave, only for the ground to give way, and Seth fell into the plot head first.
The soil, blood, gravel and stone appeared to pull Seth downwards, as if he were in quicksand. He could not pull himself up this time. The skull, which he had left on the side of the grave, rolled towards him, and he found his body turning upwards to face it.
The sockets that once contained eyes bored into Seth, he felt the malice of its owner reaching into his very soul.
Images of hate, despair, torture and loss came rapid fire at him. She had never told him anything about herself, but here, amongst her remains, her secrets were literally unearthed.
She had been married, and like Seth, had found herself an unwilling visitor of The Blood and the Raven. Seth thought it had been Mariana who had made her one of the undead. But one word filled his head.
Juliana.
Piecing the images together, it was clear that Gretchen belonged to a different time, a different England. Having had her young life taken from her, plus that of her husband, she existed for just one thing – vengeance.
Her hatred was overpowering. If this was her last resting place, she was not at rest. If Seth did not get his act together, he would find himself to be resting amongst her bones; and that would not do at all.
He also did not want any further meetings with this Juliana. If Gretchen was anything to go by, Juliana would be a hundred times worse.
Seth somehow managed to pull himself to a standing position. A rock had jutted out of the side of the grave, and he grabbed at it, half expecting it to come away, but it stayed true.
No wonder this Gretchen was not at rest. There was no coffin. Her remains had been thrown into the plot, and were displaced. The skull had been separated from the rest of the body, and yet, her hair remained.
He moved her arms and legs into position, and lay the skull at the top, before uttering a curse, damning her to Hell. Using the shovel, he smashed her skull apart, and jammed the stake where her heart would have been.
Above him, he heard a scream. No – it was a screeching sound, followed by a flapping of wings. Ricky had told him about the bird - a crow – which had also appeared in his distorted dream.
Its claws slashed the back of Seth’s neck, but the first part of the deed was done.
Seth grabbed his bag, and poured the holy water into the grave. To his shock, it caught fire and he scrambled for safety, though some of the flames reached his clothing, which he beat down until he smote the heat out.
The crow circled around the grave, cawing wickedly at Seth. It darted at him, but it was to be the bird’s last act. Seth swung the shovel and timed it just right. The bird’s small body collided with metal, and fell limply into the open grave.
The vampire might never rest in peace. But he was now certain she could never hurt anyone ever again, and though the visions of his destruction of her grave would torment his sleep for many a long night, finally, Seth believed his nightmarish dreams would soon be coming to an end.
Broken Wing
12 years later.
“Seth. Seth. You’ve been awfully quiet. Are you okay?”
Seth McAndrew, twenty-nine years of age, squeezed his fiancée’s hand. He had settled down, and had put to rest all the trauma over Daisy. Rosalyn was going to be his wife one day, and they would have a happy and long life together.
“Sure, Roz. I’m fine.”
Rosalyn smiled back at Seth, but she knew he was just parading the whole British stiff-upper-lip thing, and he was anything but fine. Their July wedding was just six months away, and though they were loathed to admit it, planning for the big day was wearing them both down.
To everyone else, they put on the act of a happy, not-under-any-pressure-at-all couple. It was fair and true to say that Seth and Rosalyn were in love, and were very happy together. Seth had been the one to propose, which surprised Rosalyn, as he had said early on in their relationship that he did not want to be together with someone because of a piece of paper.
“The marriage certificate is just that, Seth. What we will build together will be so much more meaningful.”
Recent events had made Seth desperately hope that Rosalyn would break up with him. Not because he didn’t love her – he did; almost too much, one might say. Everyone around him was dropping like flies. The local news reports had caught wind of it too, and decided that it was better to say there was a fever in the community, rather than saying the truth. The truth was, they had no idea what they were dealing with. But they would not trust the public with their findings, the results of which were inconclusive, at best.
In the last year alone, the community had recorded thirty-seven seemingly unrelated deaths. Some had jumped off the office block of where they worked. Others had got into their car and smashed it into a roadside. There had been some sightings of a woman with black eyes, fangs, and thin lines of blood leaking from her eyes. It was reported that it was this figure who was driving people to their deaths, if not causing it directly herself.
There was a spate of suicides on the railways of course, with one man apparently surviving the train running over him, with the searing heat from the train healing his open wound like a suture.
Dream the Crow's Black Dream - A Tale of Vampires Book Four Page 4
