A Collection Of Short Stories

The End of A Bloodline

A long time ago, there was once a young man named Daniel Brooks. He was 6'2"; had warm, doe like baby blue eyes; a Roman styled nose; short, wavy auburn hair that when nervous he ran his hands through it; his face was like porcelain; his voice was a soft alto with a heavy British accent and strong worn hands from years of farm work. One day he received a letter from a lawyer requesting his presence at the will reading of some long lost relative. Daniel, a curious person, was quick to agree to attending. At the will reading Daniel had been given the deed to an old castle back in his ancestral country of Romania. The deed had been handed over with a very ominous warning about supposedly there being an ancestral curse cast by a spurned lover out for revenge, who was a witch, which activated upon entry of the castle.

Daniel was not a very superstitious person. He refused to believe such hog wash. So as quickly as he could finish up his business and tie up loose ends, he was on his way to Romania. When his plane landed he had a taxi, rarity that it was, take him up to where the castle stood. Halfway there the taxi's back tires became flat and there were no spares. Daniel decided to walk the rest of the way. The ground crunched much like a bone breaking as he walked on it. He looked up at the sky trying to gauge what time it was as his watch had seemed to have broken, which was strange considering the watch was brand new. He saw that there were crows flying high in the sky. After a while the sun set and under the glow of the full moon in the distance he could hear wolves howling. The wind withered around him as he continued his trek to the castle.

He finally came upon the castle. He was surprised by what he saw. The castle stood at 28ft tall and 36ft wide. The entry doors of the castle were dark stained cherry wood. He cautiously entered the castle. He noticed that the floor was a light beige granite. The walls were an emerald green color. On the wall were pictures of family members long gone. The widows were French made. He stepped in to the parlor and was intrigued by the furniture was an electric blue silk set imported from Italy. He wondered who had taken such good care of this place after all it was too big for just one person to clean and maintain. He was overcome with the need to sleep. So he took off his boots, hopped onto the couch, and passed out.

He woke up to someone screaming. It was a woman dressed in white. He yelled at her to quit but she wouldn't stop. So he picked up a pillow and threw it at her. The pillow went right through her and she disappeared. He was frozen in momentary fear thinking that that woman was a ghost but as stated earlier he didn't stand for any hog wash such as ghosts. He chalked it up to him being so tired that he was hallucinating. Now that he was awake he began exploring his new place of residence. He found that there was a dungeon in the castle's lowest levels. There he saw chains and shackles attached to the wall farthest from the door. He received this feeling that if he stayed down there for much longer that he would find himself imprisoned in the very shackles on the wall. He all but ran back up to the first floor. Once there he heard a knocking sound coming from the front doors. He calmly walked over and opened the door. He was introduced to the man named Victor Crawley.

Victor Crawley was dressed much like the famed werewolf hunters of old. He was heavily scarred but it made him look more rugged. His mannerisms were severely lacking as he pushed his way into the castle. He asked Daniel if he had seen or heard anything strange lately. Daniel still in denial said no. Victor didn't seem to believe him but let it go. He made Daniel promise to call him if he ever did as Victor handed Daniel his card. The card read as follows: Victor Crawley, Protector of Humans, and Slayer of Revenants, Vampires, and Werewolves. Daniel believed this man crazy. He didn't think he would ever call the man.

Several months passed with strange happenings. The woman in white Daniel saw his first morning in the castle showed up every morning to scream him awake. Daniel developed a case of sleepwalking. He woke up every morning covered in blood with no idea as to how it got on him. Over time he noticed that the town a few miles from the castle had missing posters up. All of the people missing had disappeared during the night. Daniel only wanted to think that a coincidence between his sleepwalking, his blood covered body in the mornings and the missing people.

He once went for a walk on his property's backyard and found a lot of freshly dug up spots of earth that looked as though they were at grave yard. He had quickly denied that he had even thought such a thing after all he wasn't a killer. Even though he denied being a killer he had his doubts. So one night he set up a camera to record what he does in his sleep. He was rather horrified by what he saw the next morning. The video showed him walking out of the castle, coming back a few hours later with two people, tying them up, then grabbing a butcher knife and gutting them. He had giant empty jugs placed under the bodies that captured all of his victims' blood. He dragged the bodies out in the back yard, buried them, came back in, drank some the blood and then cleaned up the mess all before falling back onto the couch asleep.

He was afraid. He didn't want to believe that he could do such a thing but the video wasn't fake. He couldn't deny that what he did was something he had only seen vampires who wanted to last in hiding for awhile do. He had turned into a vampire. This must have been the ancestral curse he was warned about. He didn't want to be a vampire not if it meant constantly killing people for his own survival. He decided that as he had no children that the curse should die with him.

He had called Victor Crawley and told him what he had just now realized had happen to him. He had Victor swear to help him end this curse. Victor showed up at the castle armed with the usual vampire killing/hunting weapons. He had two large containers full of holy water, a few wooden stakes in case Daniel was willing to stay still long enough to be staked, and a pistol with wooden bullets soaked in holy water. One could never have enough holy water when dealing with vampires. Victor had to shoot Daniel in the end because his vampire instincts had refused to let him be staked. Over the years the story of Daniel Brooks was told as a warning about curses. The old castle still stands with a new ghost having joined the woman in white.