The Circus Master

The Book of the Vampires: The Satanic Mills

Kelly couldn't take another second. She had been on her feet non stop for about 6 hours, and she still had another 6 to go. Even though Kelly had worked in this rotten flower mill for the past 8 years. (She had the scars, as well as a few missing fingers to prove it.) This had been a particularly hard shift however.

Things had become a lot harder for Kelly overall in the last year as her husband, Christopher had tragically been killed in an accident in this very mill. The two working together barely scraped enough money for their three children, two girls and a boy, all under about 6. Kelly and Christopher were almost like strangers to their children they got to spend so little time with them.

Kelly hated the mill more than any of the other poor souls who were forced to work there. Every day she would come in and be forced to stare at the machine that tore the man she loved to pieces. Sadly she couldn't leave however as work was scarce elsewhere. At certain points she even contemplated forcing her children to work in the mill she was so desperate. Ultimately however she always thought better of it. Kelly had been forced to work by her own father since she was 4 years old. She'd never really had time to figure out who she was, or what she wanted in life. Almost all of her days had been spent in a noisy, hot, dangerous factory of some kind, with only a few hours of comfort sprinkled in between. She was determined that her children were going to have more of a chance than she ever did.

"I just hope that rotten Ferguson doesn't stiff me with some truck wages again" Kelly said bitterly as she took her five minute break to have a smoke.

She had to go outside the factory to smoke. "Heaven forbid my smoking should pollute the already poison air we breath in here", she thought to herself, but still she had to obey the rules. The higher ups would take any excuse to fine her.

Kelly wasn't in the best of health, and the 18 cigarettes a day certainly hadn't helped her. Still it not only got her out of the factory for a short while, but it was the only way she could cope with the stress. If she knew she could get a fag at the end of a 6 hour shift, it was something to strive for.

This time however would be different. For once Kelly would actually regret coming outside.

As she stood by the wall near the door, taking in the fresh air before inhaling nicotine into her lungs, she suddenly felt a drip on her shoulder. "Oh great its going to rain" she thought. "I'll have to trundle home in the most miserable weather." She had about an hours walk to get to work.

As she went to wipe it off her shoulder however she saw that the "rain" was red. She dropped her fag and screamed only to see there was more blood on the floor next to her.

"Some poor soul must have had an accident" she thought, but then as she slowly looked up, following a trail of blood up the wall, she saw a flayed, mutilated body, impaled into the building with a large knife. Kelly wasn't the squeamish type. This was a woman who had seen people, including her husband suffer fatal accidents her entire life. She saw her own father get his hand caught in a machine when she was just 9 years old, which he then had to have amputated! Still this was enough to make her sick on the pavement.

After puking her lungs out, Kelly got a better look at the body. She could see that it was her former miserly employer, John Ferguson! She could tell because of how fat the corpse was more than anything else. Even then however most of his guts had been torn out, along with both of his legs.

Kelly ran back into the factory, coughing and spluttering as she did.

"Someone call the police" she shouted through coughs to her co-workers. Most of them didn't take notice however as the noise of the machines drowned her out.