Mis-Staken

The castle doors groaned inward, breathing in the dry leaves like a man eating spaghetti.

Benjamin Daniel’s heartbeat quickened. This building had to be the place.

A pile of dead villagers lay to the side, drained of blood like discarded ketchup packets. Twin puncture marks adorned all their necks.

Others might’ve missed such a clue, but he’d been hunting the vampire for decades. Benjamin had learned to detect his quarry in even the faintest of traces. He unsheathed a stake and pulled out his wooden mallet.

Behind him, the setting sun knocked its glass of red wine off the table, filling the valleys. Long black fingers stretched as God made elaborate shadow puppets.

Ben sighed. It would be night soon. He had to do this before Count Eichelg – Gerlach to friends – woke for the evening. If he didn’t, the count would either kill him, turn him into one of his army of the undead, or escape him for the umpteenth time. All were undesirable outcomes. He strode past the rotted wooden doors and headed for the cellar stairs.

Echos bounced around him, reverberating off the moist cobblestones. The musty aroma of stone and the waft of damp air intermingled to make a delightful perfume. The temperature dropped ten degrees.

He grumbled. If only he’d finished knitting his jumper. The complex pattern meant it was taking him longer than usual. It had a picture of a vampire bat inside a prohibition sign: a red circle with a diagonal dash.

Deeper in, the stench of decay took a firmer hold – a Chinese finger trap stuck on his olfactory system’s digits. It was like sour milk mixed with rotten tomatoes. The dying light from the open doors grew weaker, but a strange red glow throbbed from beneath.

On a ballerina’s tiptoes, Benjamin descended the final steps.

Hundreds of red candles circled the room, their flames casting cosy pools of light. In the middle of it all, a black coffin sat upon a catafalque like a dead walrus.

Benjamin grunted. Either Gerlach had painted them with lipstick, or he’d made them out of the blood of his victims. And the count didn’t strike him as the makeup-video-tutorial type. He checked the four corners of the room and then approached the casket.

Despite the candles’ light, the coffin was so black that it appeared two-dimensional.

Benjamin ran his hands over the wood.

Layer upon layer of pictographs carved the surface.

He couldn’t make out what they were. Once done with his business here, he’d return with paper and a bumper pack of crayons to perform rubbings. But arts and crafts could wait until after the murder. Ben lifted the lid like a divorced dad opening a Tupperware box filled with cold lasagne.

Lying upon a bed of red satin, with his thumb tucked into his mouth, was Gerlach Eichelg. On either side of his thumb, his two blood-sucking teeth protruded over his lips. His white hair puffed up in a bouffant heart shape, proving that not even vampires are immune to trends. His lined skin was as white as the white crayon in Ben’s bumper Crayola packet that he’d forgotten to bring. He wore pyjamas with a repeating motif of disembodied vampire fangs. In his non-thumb-sucking hand, he clutched a well-worn bat plushie.

Benjamin reminded himself that even the most ferocious animals looked cute whilst asleep. Count Eichelg was a monster who’d taken thousands of lives during his few hundred years on the planet. He brushed aside the vampire’s hand.

The bat plushie, which had a pair of vampire fangs jutting out of its mouth, squeaked when he moved it.

Ben scowled. The beast was well-practised in keeping itself alive. He ought to stay strong and keep to his mission. These adorable defence tactics wouldn’t work on him. Ben rested the stake above where Gerlach’s ancient engine of a heart coughed and spluttered.

The vampire stirred, legs twitching like a cat dreaming of hunting.

Benjamin brought the mallet down, punching the stake through Count Eichelg’s heart.

Gerlach’s eyes popped open, and he opened his fanged mouth in a scream. He sat bolt upright with the stake protruding from his chest. The shriek died to a hoarse whisper until the vampire sighed, shoulders slumping. He said two words before exploding into a cloud of ashes. ‘Oh, bugger.’

Ben’s heart hammered in his chest in the way that Gerlach’s never would again. Cold sweat dampened his neck and armpits. He’d done it; he’d done it! Gerlach Eichelg’s reign of terror was over after several centuries. He, Benjamin Daniel, had succeeded. They said he was crazy to devote his life to wiping the scourge from the planet, like a bug off the world’s windscreen. Well, who was crazy now? He laughed in the candlelit room next to the ash-filled coffin. He slapped his knee.

When he finally emerged victorious from the castle, night had fallen. Further down in the valley, birds chirped and wished each other a good night.

Benjamin grumbled, frowning. Something here didn’t feel right. It took him a moment to put his stake on it: the night felt safe and quiet. Too safe, too quiet. And not in a cheesy movie-line kind of way, either. All his life, he’d viewed the darkness as something to fear. The gloaming had always been a place where evil lurked. But now? Nothing. He sat down on the castle steps with a grunt.

The moonlight lit up the scene in shades of grey and pale blue.

He realised he did indeed feel blue. With Count Eichelg on the prowl, Benjamin had had a purpose, a task. Now that that task was over, what was he to do? Did Ben even have a purpose anymore? Sure, he’d saved countless lives by doing so, but what of his life satisfaction? Would his rescuees ever think about that, huh? He now felt aimless, like a balloon drifting from a child’s hands after you’ve cut the string with a pair of scissors. Benjamin had killed his nemesis. He thought this would have brought him joy, but he appeared to be mistaken. Where to from here? He rubbed his temples, deflating.

The autumn leaves skittered around him.

He needed another monster.