Welcome to the Village

This short story was selected and published in my high school literary magazine, The Raider Review. It has also been published through Blurb along with several other short stories I have written. Lacey gets lost with her friends driving along a dark,

The aroma was intoxicating as I lay on the pillow of dead leaves. Was this real? All I could recall was that just an hour ago I had been with my six best friends in the backseat of Zach’s Volvo, coming home from a late concert. That’s when the silver vehicle began swerving violently off the road like a bucking bull, as the tires disagreed with the desperate yanks Zach inflicted on the steering wheel.

            I felt a great blow to the head amongst deafening screeches of the protesting tires, while the car spun wildly in circles like an amusement park ride. With one great jolt the ride of horror abruptly came to an ungraceful crash. Shards of piercing diamonds rained down on top of Chris, Melanie, and I as the sound of obliterating glass and crunching metal woke the night. After a few seconds of petrified silence, the question “Is everyone okay?” was thrown around from everyone’s lips in unison.

“Melanie’s arm is pretty torn up,” Chris replied, gently taking his girlfriend’s arm as she winced in pain, and her pretty face twisted in attempt to keep from screaming.

            “Lacey’s got a head wound,” Dayton observed anxiously from the passenger seat, his dark silhouette turned facing me, erasing his already dark features. “We have to get her to the nearest hospital as soon as possible.”

            “I’m fine,” I protested stubbornly through gritted teeth, even before my trembling fingers could reach my scalp to assess the damage. As my finger tips traced my forehead they immediately felt the sticky red substance protruding from my ivory skin, matting down my dark brown bangs. That’s when I became aware of the pulsating headache ripping through my skull. I wiped the dripping blood on my fingers across my faded blue jeans.

            “We can’t drive anywhere in this. The two back wheels have completely detached themselves,” Zach announced, running his thick fingers through his dark cropped hair. “Besides, I have no clue where we even are. There are woods on either side of this road. I can’t make anything out.”

            “My cell doesn’t have any service,” Melanie informed us, her voice shaking as she revealed it from behind a cloak of her blonde hair. Neither did anyone else’s, we soon discovered.

            “So what are we supposed to do now?” Jordan’s fragile voice asked as she nervously played with her long black plait. “No cell phone, no car—we’re stranded out here in the middle of night!”

            Zach attempted to calm everyone down, suggesting we get out of the car and try walking to the nearest town. We all began climbing out of the mangled car, trying to avoid the shards of glass scattered carelessly throughout the backseat. 

            A tremor ran down my spine as we all stumbled around the scene of the wreck. The road we were on was completely abandoned. No passing cars, no shining stars. Piles of thick clouds were outlined by the little light projected by the full moon, which was itself passing in and out of concealment. A thick fog rolled lazily around our feet, and the woods on either side of the narrow road provided a sense of enclosure or claustrophobia. Several owls hooted in the distance.

            “No one is going to be traveling along this road at midnight, Chris,” Melanie snapped as they fought over what to do. “My arm is bleeding like crazy—and look at poor Lacey over there, she’s in such pain she can barely speak! We have to find the nearest town right away. I’m with Zach.  We should walk.”

            I stood watching the bickering in silence, holding my head gingerly. The wind picked up its tempo slightly, and the dark clouds over head swam faster through the sky in correspondence to the fog floating past my legs, only visible by the reflection of moonlight. 

Suddenly, the tree tops overhead shook violently in the unknown darkness, as though something quickly flew through them. I leapt backwards, throwing a blood covered hand to my racing heart. A dark, looming shadow stalked across the tree tops, hovering past like a black, thick smoke. My breathing instantly fell ragged, and I could hear the blood pulsing in my temples, causing it to spurt even more so from the gash on my forehead.   

A series of sharp squeals pierced the sky, causing me to inhale sharply and stumble backwards. Bats—my one and only phobia. With a petrified shriek I crashed into another body, spinning around to come face to face with Dayton, his dark eyes gazing down on me in concern.

            “Are you sure you’re alright?” he questioned, placing his warm hands around each of my arms. Before I had time to respond about the bats, Jordan gasped.

            “Look! Who’s that? Do you see that?” Her arm jolted from her side, pointing down the windy road in the distance, towards something I had to squint to see clearly.

            “There are people coming out of the fog,” Chris announced as we stood like statues, skeptically watching the three dark, undistinguished figures emerge from the curtain of fog. My heart thumped loudly, daring to escape its cage. 

            “Hello?” Melanie cried out anxiously, shrugging away from Chris’s embrace, trying desperately to keep her from the shadowy figures. “Hello? Is someone out there?”

            We each simultaneously took a startled step backwards, just at the mere sight of their striking appearances emerging from the cloak of fog.

            Two of them were males, one female, and all three had iridescent, paper white flesh and black eyes darker than coal. Even from a good 50 foot distance apart, I felt as though their eyes bore deep into my skin; their gaze was penetrating enough to break bone. They were all gorgeous creatures; the female had long, wild, curly, blonde tendrils streaming from the crown of her head and cascading down her back and in front of her poised, strong shoulders. She wore a long black pleated skirt and an opened neck white blouse, in which her skin was even whiter than the fabric. Her companions looked very much alike, only the one male was much taller and had a wider jaw. They each had the same slicked back chestnut hair, prominent dark violet circles under their eyes, and waist coats with pinstripe trousers. 

            They stood before us now, transfixed with hard, stony faces and irises as dark as their pupils. Their noses were each flared in the same unapproachable way. By their hesitant expressions, everyone was as uncertain about these strangers as I was, except for Melanie. She jumped right up to them, so anxious she seemed rather possessed, and began explaining our predicament straight away.

            “Could you help us?” She finally asked, not seeming taken aback by their deafening silence. “Is there a town near here at all?”

            The woman unclenched her jaw, and set her pretty face in a polite fashion. “There’s a village not yet a mile away from where we stand,” She stated smoothly in a cool, intelligent voice. “We smell—…heard the sound of your crash, and thought we’d come see if we could be of any assistance.”

            “There’s a village? Nearby?” Zach repeated hopefully.

            “Oh, thank God!” Mel cried thankfully. “My arm won’t stop bleeding. Is there anyone who could take care of our wounds?” She added, pointing towards me, where I was concealed halfway behind Dayton’s strong figure, praying the focus of the beetle like eyes would not be flashed my way. All three of the strangers’ expressions changed reacting to my gash, and their firm posture altered uneasily.

            “Oh, I think there is more than one person who would take care of those wounds, my dear,” The tallest man said in a deep, drawling voice, his stone like eyes never parting my oozing wound.

            “Then let’s go!” Melanie shouted exasperatedly at once. “Come on guys, maybe they have a phone or something we could use to get a ride!”

            My eyes lingered to Dayton’s, whose gaze was firm and almost as piercing as the villagers. “She can’t walk that far.” He answered on my behalf.

            “Surely she can, it’s not that—”

            “She’s severely injured, she shouldn’t attempt to.” He interrupted the shorter man’s icy tone.

            “Mel, please don’t go,” I begged her quietly, although I wanted to scream and drop to her feet in protest. Something was not right about their eyes…about their skin…

            “Well I’m bleeding and I want help!” Melanie interjected impatiently. “I’m going, who’s coming with me?”

            Reluctantly, Chris stepped towards her, avoiding eye contact with the milky white villagers. Zach stepped forward as well, his reasoning being it was his car that was wrecked, and perhaps he could call a tow truck to come pick it up. Jordan walked forward too, clearly afraid she would be the one left behind with only me.

            “Is this everyone wishing to go?” The woman questioned, her porcelain face contorting into a pondering expression. Dayton remained rigid by my side. Without another word, the woman led them in a brisk, fluid pace into the thick fog, where their outlines gradually turned to black and then disappeared…and my heart would not steady itself in fear for my friends.

            “Something’s not right here,” Dayton muttered.

            “Oh, I’m so glad you agree!” I exclaimed with relief. “What are we supposed to do? I-I’m so afraid for them.”

            Dayton suggested I wait in the car while he attempted to find the beginning of the road. I opened my mouth to object, just as I felt another trickle of blood slide like a river down my face, and the tipsy, light-headed feeling over powered me.

            It was silent in the car except for the occasional hoot of an owl and the groan of the car when it was disturbed by the vicious wind. I was beginning to wonder when the others would return, when suddenly I heard a blood curdling scream tear the night’s silence to pieces.

            I froze in my seat, attempting to see through the fogged over windows. Could that have been Mel or Jordan? Before I could explain what I was doing, I had torn the car door open and was standing out in the middle of the road again, dizzy and unfocused.

            “No, please, anything, I beg you!” A tormented girl’s voice echoed desperately as my heartbeat started accelerating rapidly once again. Before I could realize what I was doing, I was sprinting off in the direction of the series of tortured cries for help. I could barely see as it was, and I quickly grew even lighter headed, and needed to stop at the crescent of a hill, bending at the waist to catch my breath.

            Blood was trickled along the pavement at my feet, barely noticeable if not for the reflection of the sparkling, innocent moonlight. There was a trail of it leading down over the winding hill. Anxiously, I crawled along on my knees, my vision becoming obscured to the point I was nearly seeing double.

            From my position at the top of the hill, I could see a picturesque view of a village surrounded by the woods.  Not the pleasant kind you’d normally imagine, but a medieval, gloomy, foreboding town, seemingly all locked up and not a trace of residency in sight. Until one door of one structure down below lingered open with a creak, the sound traveling up to the top of the hill where I was now standing on a pair of quaking legs. I leapt backwards in fright, tripping over something on the outskirt of the woods, falling hard on my back as my face crashed right before the blank, vacant face of Melanie’s. Gasping, I saw the twin puncture wounds and spill of blood on the side of her snow white neck by her jugular, her bulging crystal blue eyes fading fast just inches from my own.

            “Your blood… they can smell it,” she rasped in between harsh breaths. “Run.”

            At that second the village below erupted in an unsettling symphony of hungry squeals and the sharp unison of flapping wings. I sprang to my feet in time to see the swarm of blackness flying towards me from the opened door, and I took off in the opposite direction as fast as my legs would allow. My head was throbbing, the blood was spewing. They’d find me for sure on this blank strip of road…

            I ducked inside the woods without a second thought, slowing my pace slightly to accommodate for my clumsiness combined with the extra obstacles of fallen trees and scattered rocks. The squealing still rang strongly in my ears, and as I ran further and further I lost track of the hunter’s call. All I could hear was the beating of my heart matched with the pulsing blood in my temples. I felt almost drunk; the little forest visible to me all became a blur, and everything began to steadily echo and lager. I urged myself to keep going, but my attempt was futile. A stray root caught hold of my right ankle and down I tumbled, still in slow motion, as I collapsed numbly on the rocks and bed of dead leaves face first.

            I turned over, lying crippled and waiting for death to find me. Or at least, that’s what I’d rather receive. My eyes stubbornly focused enough to see the blonde woman vampire from earlier towering over me, as well as the two males and a few others.

            “For every feast, we must keep just one prey alive. It’s how we immortals grow in numbers.” Her voice was dripping in sick pleasure as I lay defenselessly, staring in terror at the figures surrounding my broken body. “Welcome to the village,” She hissed, revealing a set of pearly fangs. As she bent down to my throat, I instantly felt the hot venom sear through my veins, pumping loudly, even more wild than before. It was thick and sweet and pure torture all at once, as the venom exchanged itself with my blood.

            But instead of finishing me to death like Mel and the others, she slowly backed away with a content smirk of approval. I stared down upon my paper white hands and ran my tongue across razor sharp fangs. The scent of Dayton’s sweet, distant blood hung heavy and inviting in my nose…

            The aroma was intoxicating as I lay on the pillow of dead leaves. Was this real?

Yes, I was one of them.

 

Author's Note

Please let me know what you think!

Reviews

[Jared Hughes]

Wow, I really enjoyed this story! I didn't expect the Vampires at all, until of course the three dark figures emerged from the fog. The story was great, and your words are very descriptive. One thing I might change though is the line, "Is this everyone wishing to go?"
It would sound better like this, "Is this everyone that wishes to go?" or "Is this everyone?"
Overall though, a fantastic story.

[Sean M. Addams]

very cool piece liked the storyline and character development in this alot... a very chilling write.. nice job!!

[deeps]

Wow! I like this story here, I agree with Jared on this.
Very descriptive and wonderful imagery as well.
Very well written. Wonderful story.