The Dust of Caralee

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Write a flash fiction vampire story. This story should be no more than 1,000 words and the word count must be included in the body of your item.

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Caralee’s Lament

Evening spawns night. A heavy blackness falls. Zombies walk, their tread the beat of Indian tom-toms or the slow monotony of a beating heart – a particular body part that zombies inhumanely lack.

Ogres grow teeth sharper, feet smellier, and whiskers fuller. They brim over nicely rounded stomachs like expanding brillo pads.

Further out, live the dark ones, those half-dead creatures whose delight is sipping blood from frightened villagers, villagers who cling to hearths with scarlet flames in the hopes that safety nestles there.

Zombies avoid the town, despising its stench of unputrid skin. Ogres, likewise, give it wide-birth, fearing the hunter's aspen crossbows that shoot arrows, sharp as death.

The dark ones do not avoid the town. They hunger. Flesh disgusts them. Laughter and frolic they ignore, but not BLOOD. Its odor sings through the night winds and slips inside their coffins.

The dark ones awaken just after sun shudders one last bleated groan and releases its tyranny over sky and night. In its absence, coffins -- hinges cranky from great age -- squeak open, and the night demons arise.

The oldest one, boasting nine hundred years of fang-feasting glory, has formed a family -- four young ones and a wife. Each member of his family is thick with magic, the kind that projects a compulsion across a victim’s body so strong, none can resist its manic ardor.

For vampires, youth does not necessarily align with beauty, and these demons are the super models of the underworld. They entice men and women with a mere look, one that offers no warning that underneath the beauty lies a heart frosted by death’s coldness.

The children of these ancient ones are fine-figured with night-black locks, elegant lines, and noses as arrogant as eagles’, and just as eager as their parents to sample the village's deliciousness, except for the one who has a different purpose for the night. She doesn't speak of it.

Ignorant of her desire, the family slithers forth from their cavern deep inside the mountain, fluffing out their red and black satin capes. The excess fabric forms velvet wings, and before the hoot owl can send forth even one warning call, the vampire family soars upward.

The wife, sweet Priscilla Anne, is no less appealing than when her lord first enticed her within his shiny cape. Full vampire for seven centuries, she glides on air currents, then settles down upon the new, young school teacher who sleeps beside his pile of uncorrected papers. Sadly those fine essays will never receive any grammatical inspection. The errors within their ink spots will abound forever more, for the teacher, soon milked of all his goodness, gives out a satisfied interjection and a single exclamation point.

The sire of the family lusts for a more curvaceous enticement. From his moonless span of darkling sky, he spots the town’s only prostitute -- lithesome Molly -- who, alas, will never earn her supper that night. She dances a fine love ditty for the vampire lord, then dies with only the slimmest breath of ejaculation, her lips curved in an eternal smile.

Sons one, two, and three knock at ice-coated windows. They have studiously planned their night’s foray with the daughters of the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker. Kisses and far more athletic maneuverings transpire beneath blankets in three attic bedrooms. Sweet symphonies swell and crescendo amid hushed squeals and giggles -- until the last silence descends.

The dark lord’s daughter, Caralee, gnaws her bottom lip. She knows what her father would say. Her mother would be frantic. But Caralee, young, romantic Caralee, has decided not to dine that night, but to take a husband. Her brow wrinkles slightly -- not from age -- but from worry that she’ll err in some way. But she’s determined. No one will stop her.

She flutters her wings to peek inside each shuttered window. She bites a nail. She sighs repeatedly. Finally, just as the hoot owl returns to his den with a warm fat mouse in his claws, Caralee finds the one.

The man’s face in sleep is an exquisite carving like the purest marble. His nose is royal straight, his brow finely-textured, his shoulders broad with strength. But it is the lips that draw her eyes -- lips plump and delicious, fleshy and dark with rich, warm blood. Caralee swoops down and plunges into the room, eager to caress those lips.

Instantly he awakens. He sees the maiden’s long tresses of curly black hair and the sweetness of her exquisite female body. His eyelashes, long and full, flutter in a moment’s surprise, but his arms open wide, and he calls out softly, “Come my angel. Join me.”

Such a night! A choir of nightingales could not compete with the music of their love coos or their many gasps of delight. But night has already begun to curl herself about her pretty feet, and Caralee, lost in passion, does not hear the last flickerings of night’s hissed warning.

The great lord, his wife, and sons return to their cavern’s depths. Yawning, too tired to notice Caralee’s absence, the family enters into their caskets and bids night a well-sated farewell.

Meanwhile, Caralee in the arms of her intended, entertains – leisurely – limbs entwined, lips kissing, thirst unfulfilled, purpose uncompleted, but in lustful ecstasy.

A rooster crows. Daylight dawns, drawing gasps of horror from each corner of the town. Weeping fills the air with its hot death dirge.

It is not until the sky once more weeps tears of tangerine and lemon that the young mayor of Goosemother Point is found dead amid a strange pile of dust.

Zombies walk the nights of dread, stumping their toes and leaving body parts in odd locations. Ogres growl and prowl about, protesting the injustice of armed villagers.

But in the darkest crook of the deepest cavern, an ancient family grieves for Caralee. Their eyes pour forth no salted village tears, but their grief will long endure -- night after night –- forever.



1,000 words

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