It was a dark and stormy night. The brilliant flashes of lighting tore through the sky, the thunder rumbled through the night sending trembles through the ground. That's the way a story about horrible things to come is supposed to start. But not this story. Horrible things were indeed coming, as they have come in the past, but this horror happens on a brilliant, unusually warm, sunny day late in autumn.
The young bunny had a wonderful summer. She was fat from the bountiful perfect summer. Fat not just from all the food she could eat, but fat also with her third litter of the year. Birth was soon and she had already prepared her warren. It was in an old farm field, unused in many years since the last of the farm family left. Left the farm, and left a long forgotten dark and dangerous secret.
...
Generations earlier, an ancient noble family fled in fear from their Barony in Germany, when the superstitious peasants that they had treated with care and love for generations rose up in rebellion. The rumors of evil were known for years, had grown with the mysterious disappearance of friends and neighbors. More than a dozen villagers mysteriuosly died in the night. The deaths were not so mysterious for those who knew the signs.
With the death of a young daughter of the overseer of the Barony's largest village, the Barons subjects had seen enough, heard enough, suffered enough. On that dark moonless night, the beautful young women was looking forward to her wedding the next day. Her lifeless, and bloodless, body was found in the pre-morning darkness. Soon screams peirced the dim early morning light. The sobs of the young bride's mother, the racking distress of her father, the heart wrenching sight of the would be groom was more than the villagers could contain. Someone had seen the evil creature fleeing, in the appearance of the Baron's daughter, back into the Baron's castle. This ethereal apparition had been seen after several disappearances, after other gruesome deaths.
Rumors were whispered thoughout the Barony. Everyone suspected there was evil lurking in darkness within the Baron's castle. But fear of the Baron's wrath had kept the villagers anger to just hidden whispers. If they were known to susspect the Baron's family of such evil, would they be the next victum. The Baron's neighboring noble families also feared the Baron and his family, they too heard the rumors. After the young brides death, the villagers anger boiled over and rose up against the dark castle. The baran sent swift messengers to the neighboring Baronys, but they refused to help the Baron as his own subjects laid siege to his fortress, a walled castle in Northern Bavaria.
Most of the Barons men-in-arms had fled, or joined the peasants. He had only three knights left loyal to him and the family. It was only a matter of time, a short time the way it looked, before the swarming mass of over two hundred peasants, with pitch forks, clubs, knives, and even a few swords, broke through, or over, the fortified walls. The gates were strong, but wood did not hold back a crazed mob for long.
There were only a few dozen villagers watching the small gate at the back of the garden. The gate was just large enough for a small cart. The Baron knew he must flee with his family. As the sun set over the small castle walls, he packed what wealth he could in the cart and a few of his family belongings. He carefully and lovingly loaded his wife, young son and daughter, and the frightening family secret in the cart, and with his three remaining mounted knights and his own sword drawn, he prepared to flee the home his family lived in for generations. Siting tall upon his own well trained mount he led there small group. They opened the small gate to the early evening mist and fled.
The cart pulled by two horses, driven by his wife, followed the four mounted warriors as they raced though the small gate. She urged the horses on as fast as she could, while the enraged villagers tried in vain to stop the cart. The hole in the peasants siege made by the charge of the knights and her husband was enough to allow the cart to break through. As instructed by her husband, she drove on, not looking back. Her husband would distract the peasants long enough to allow them to escape, then follow her to the main highway leading to the nearest port. They were fleeing not just his own local peasants, but his own homeland. His family had owned and ruled this small Barony, his own personal kingdom, for many generations. But the Baron knew he was no longer welcome by subjects, or any of his former friends and powerful acquaintances. His reputation, his family's reputation, forever destroyed by the superstitions surrounding the dangerous secret laying silent in the cart.
Now he was giving up everything to protect the family he loved because of his family secret. A family tragedy which has haunted his subjects for the past two years, since that tragic day when a noble women left her sweet niece in their care. Just for three weeks to take care of a sick family friend and she would be back for her niece, her sweet little Carmilla.
...
Back in the pleasant sunny field, as sunset approached, the bunny entered her warren. Contractions had started, birth would be soon. She crawled to the deepest corner of her underground home, protected from above by a large flat stone. It was the best warren she ever found. A dry cave with a strange flat wooden floor and a good solid stone roof. The wood was old, soft, and crumbling in many places. For the young expectant mother bunny, this was a palace.
At the furthest end of the cave, she settled in, prepared for what was to come. A rabbits life was rarely as easy as this summer had been for the young mother. Weather had been nice and food plentyful, what more could a bunny wish for. An inside her, there were six tiny heart beats waiting for their grand entrance to this harsh world.
The wood floor was softer here, crumbling to splinters beneath her feet. She had prepared it with straw and grass from the surrounding field. She was always scared as this time approached, but less then usual in her grand palace. The contractions increased, and she tried to make herself comfortable. One of her hind paws slipped through a whole in the floor of her palace, and it happened. The horror starts.
...
They young Carmilla had taken very well to Angelina, the Barons daughter. Being the ward of a Countess, she had a noble demeanor and appeared to be about the same age as the sixteen year old Baron's daughter. The visiting young woman was gorgeous, a perfect example of young womanhood. Her Aunt was the Countess Mircalla Karnstein. Carmilla and Angelina spent many hours together, usually in the evening after the late day meal. Carmilla was of a habit to sleep in most of the day, rarely seen before dusk. But once the evening meal was finished, the two young women were inseparable. One day the Countess returned, and was fascinated at how close the two girls had become. It was the day after the Countess and Carmilla left that the Baron and Baroness noticed that Angelina was different. Like Carmilla, she slept most of the day. After a few days, she avoided the daylight completely. She mysteriously disappeared from the Baron's castle nearly every night. And equally mysterious, people in the nearby village and farms disappeared, sometimes to be found a few days later viciously, gruesomely, killed. For nearly two years, one or two people would disappear every month.
The Baron knew the old stories, knew what she was, he should have destroyed her if he could. But he would not, could not, destroy his beloved daughter. The Baron went to the nearest monastery and did research, and came home with a plan. There was no cure, only two possibilities remained. A third would be to do nothing, and allow the killings to continue. That third possibility, the deaths of his innocent subjects could not be allowed to continue.
Another choice the Baron could not accept, he could not kill her, even if he knew how. His beautiful and dearly loved daughter was too precious to consider her destruction. But nothing he had tried so far could keep her from escaping, locked doors were no obstacle to her nightly wanderings. Even guards at her door did not stop her rising again to prey on the peasants in the nearby by village and farms. But now, with the knowledge that he had gathered in the library of the monastery, the Baron would imprison her. It must work. He knew she would not die, but she could not be left to roam free. His hope was to keep her safe and secure until he found a cure. He knew of the young brides death over a week ago and knew his daughter had not been out of the castle since that day full of wailing. He decided the time had come to take action to stop his daughter from her distructive life. Only too late did ne realise his faithful subjects had also decided to end the terrible deaths plaging the villages of the Barrony.
...
She had laid there for ever so long. Since her family chained her hands and feet, placed her in the wooden box lined with garlic oil and mistletoe juice. A necklace of garlic was placed around her neck, leaving her week and in unbareable pain. She was hungry when they first caught her, the sun was just setting and she had not fed in several days. Before she had fully revived from the long daytime slumber, they were upon her. The strong wooded box already prepared, she was chained and imprisoned before she knew what was happening. How long had it been, time was meaningless. At first she was aware of the happenings around her. She was still awake, sunrise had not yet come since she was trapped in the box lined with burning torment. She knew her family was fleeing from the great stone castle. The long trip was bumpy, bouncing her around in her small wooden box, so cramped that even a small bump slammed her face into the tightly sealed lid. There was crying, and not all of it was her own. Apparently her father had not joined them.
She heard a horse approach the small cart. The single knight who had survived told the family about the heroic death of the Baron. He fell to the frightened and fierce peasants. The Baron gave them time to escape, he gave his life to save his family, including the daughter he loved and now feared. Then, evening after evening she felt the slow rocking of the long boat ride. By the time the ship docked in the new world, she could barely sense the world around her.
She heard the arguments, should they kill her, there was no cure, how do they kill her. Her mother still distraught, without her husband how were they to survive? The family traveled to a wooded unpopulated area several days ride from the coast. They established a simple farmstead in the middle of no where, where they could live in peace. Angelina faded slowly into oblivion, nestled tightly in her little prison.
...
In her tiny prison, she could hear the beating heart above her. So close. Not just one heart beat, but also six small echos. Was she just dreaming? But there was also the smell of blood. The taste of blood. The skin was withered around her skull, shrunken to thin leather covering her thin skeleton. But something was there. It was in her ossified mouth. The tiniest drop of blood upon one of her still sharp fangs. After such a long sleep, she reacted slowly. Heart beats, blood, what comes next? Her mind was in agony. She had long since ceased feeling pain, but was now again in agony. She had to end the pain, but how. Heart beat, blood, then...
Her withered, dry muscles reacted. Not wanting to move, they did so by reflex. Her lower jaw moved up to meet her upper, catching between her razor teeth a small soft furry paw. Tearing open the flesh, a small trickle of blood flowed. Ages seemed to pass for the drowsy Angelina, ages of hearing the heart beat and it's faint echos, ages for the furry leg to touch her razor tooth, ages to think about the hearts beating and the taste of blood while she pondered what it meant, ages to close her powerful jaw upon the tiny leg. For the startled young mother to be, it was but a moment, a sudden shock. The slip of her paw, a moment of sharp pain, then, before she could pull her paw free, the vise-like grip trapping the doomed appendage.
Angelina’s withered mouth burst to excruciating life. Still unable to move her withered lips, she tried to suck the painful flow of life. Even without the ability to suck, the blood trickled into her open mouth, onto her dry tongue and shrunken gums. Her awareness grew with the pain. Her gums shrunken back to reveal extraordinarily long sharp teeth, almost to the jawbone, began to swell. Her tongue, rigid and unused for nearly two centuries, dried to a petrified lump, began to quiver; and it tasted the fulness of the rich blood. Through the pain was the extraordinary euphoria that came with blood. The sound of the heartbeats pounded in her ears, one massive heart with six fast powerful echos.
Her throat screamed in silent agony as the weathered tissue began to absorb the precious life flowing slowly into her.
Her lips began to move, slowly closing on the struggling furry paw, and she began to suck life. Pain and ecstasy mingled as her body drew in life. Her mind, oblivious to everything around her for nearly two centuries bolted back to awareness. In desperation, she sucked. The great heartbeat weakened, faded, went out. Time slowed, each moment was agony, was eternity, was life. The flow of blood from the little creature slowed, ended. Her thirst grew, she sucked, sucked like she never did before. She remembered her many victims, the ecstasy of each feeding, the slowing of each heartbeat, the strength each victim brought to her. Their death, her strength and life and power. Slowly, one by one, the six echoes slowed, and each went out.
Her thirst was overwhelming. She continued to suck, but the flow was gone. The heartbeats were gone. But she was aware, she remembered, she knew. Her whole life came back. Her brief time with Camilla, their sharing in the dark of carnal pleasures, and sharing of a greater pleasure in blood from the powerful niece of the Countess. The Countess, already centuries as an immortal, had adopted the young, but beautiful, Carmilla to be her everlasting companion. Grooming her slowly with tiny shares of the immortal flow from her immortal veins, the Countess was waiting for the right time, the right maturity, to capture Carmilla at the peak of titillating beauty; to fully share the immortal gift capturing forever the shrine of carnal pleasure that Carmilla would become. Not yet immortal, Carmille shared evenings with the impressionable Angelina, her blood tinted with the blood of the Countess, was still powerfully seductive.
The last evening the Countess spent in the Baron's castle was Angelina's last night as a mortal. Angelina’s rebirth to the life of the blood was ecstasy at the hands, or teeth, of the immortal Countess. The love of her father meant so little to her once she entered her new life of blood. Her painful memory of how she had been imprisoned filled her as she sucked desperately upon the lifeless paw. And she despaired.
Her arms and feet still chained. Still unable to move. She struggled, tried to brake her bonds, to lift the rotting wooden lid above her. The revolting power of garlic and mistletoe had faded nearly completely in the long years, but some small painful trace remained and it filled her awareness with tremors of torment. If she had more blood, maybe she could brake loose. But the creature that gave it's life to give her a bit of her life back was too small. Enough to reawaken her, but not enough to give her withered muscles any strength. The blood returned feeling to her bound hands and feet, the agony of immobility. She lay there, aware of the tiny paw still in her mouth, aware of the pain of starvation, of thirst, of pain and agony. And above all, fear drowning her senses.
The remembered echoes of those tiny heartbeats still fresh in her memory. The horrible haunting of those precious little life giving heartbeats. For days, weeks, months, she remembered those heartbeats. Slowly the pain faded, the thirst forgotten. Months later, maybe years, certainly a horrible eternity, she slipped back into oblivion. A brief hope faded, a dreamless sleep forever.
Or until the next opportunity!
