Every evening the church bells rang, but on this particular night, they cried. Not only did they mourn for the loss of Susan Bennett, as her funeral party began to enter the nave, but for the dreadful corruption of her daughter, Mary.
***
Mary sat in the second row of pews in the Church of St. Michaels. She felt the smoothness of the mahogany bench beneath her, caressing her thighs under her black tights. She watched her father holding himself together in the front row. She watched her aunt move a little too close to him and place her un-ringed hand upon his back and gently rub up and down, comforting his grief. This made Mary stir with uneasiness. She was glad she was behind them. She didn’t want to be the one to comfort her father, nor did she wish to be comforted by family.
She watched as most of the community came to witness the ceremony of her mother’s funeral. She recognized most there. They stayed to the front, holding in their sobs as the pastor spoke, but Mary had cried already. She made sure to do so before the service so she wouldn’t make a fool of herself like her father was doing, though her stomach twisted with agony. She felt the emptiness gnawing at her, threatening to claw its way out and reveal her pain to the world.
She would not allow it to escape.
She looked around the great room, unable to focus on the preceding. She noticed the cobwebs in the corners of the old church. They draped idly from the pillars and statues that decorated the grand interior of the otherwise boring edifice. She wondered why no one had cleaned them before the occasion but decided it wasn’t worth it to worry any longer. She chuckled to herself, thinking her mother would have died at the sight of dust at a funeral. Good thing she already was… With that thought, the pain in her stomach grew more intense. Mary took a deep breath and watched the pastor pace rhythmically on stage. He was a terribly ugly man, Mary thought. He had a nose that stuck straight out from the center of his face, his whisks of white hair combed over his pale scalp, and his body was long and slender. He stood hunched over as if the weight of his nose was too heavy to allow him proper posture. Mary’s imagination flourished with thoughts of him lurking in the shadows and capturing his prey with sharp, unyielding fangs. He spoke so meticulously that the air seemed to become stiff around him, forming a box of monotony. His appearance grew unimaginative after a while, so Mary turned her attention away.
Mary’s eyes lingered over the people in the benches next to her. She noticed Mike Jones, the head constable. He was the man burdened with finding her mother at the bottom of the stairs after she had died from lack of balance. She noticed Tom Miller, the mayor’s son, whom she’d always been fond of until he began going steady with the town tramp. His ditzy mother never knew. She saw Linda Wilson and Barbra Johnson and Deborah Miller, who were close friends of her mother and the mothers to all of Mary’s close friends. She saw their husbands, looking utterly uninterested as they thought of better places to be, all of which were where they could get a beer and take off their irritatingly rigid suits. She noticed the people she had grown up with, not an unfamiliar face in the pews, except one. She saw a man, sitting in the far back of the church. He hadn’t removed his oversized trench coat and he still had on a hat, both of which hid his face from her view. She wondered who the man might be, but before she had time to study him, the ceremony ended and the family had to make their way out of the church to watch the dark casket get lowered into the ground.
***
Mary stood by the hole in the Earth. She wondered what would happen if she fell in without anyone noticing. What if they lowered the casket onto her? Would she suffocate or be crushed? The worms would tear into her rotting flesh. They would gnaw at her bones and suck the jelly from her lifeless eyes. She would slowly and gruesomely dissolve into the dirt, and no one would know. The sound of her father sobbing knocked her out of her trance. She was angered by this. Mary didn’t want to hear the final words of the pastor, nor did she want to hear the cries of those who didn’t know her mother as she did. They weren’t here for sorrow. They were here to witness an event, like those who watched people hanged or burned at the stake. It was fun for them, to see a death that wasn’t their own. Mary didn’t watch the final moments of her mother’s body fading from view. Instead, she watched as the orange sun followed the same path. Her mother, even after death, had planned the ceremony so perfectly that when the sun was gone, she too was gone. To Mary, it felt like the sun would stay gone along with her mother, for all eternity. At least, she wished the sun would stay away. Mary enjoyed the night. She liked the mystery of the unknown. What lurked in the shadows? What was making the unfamiliar sounds? She was enthralled with the strange. Along with the agonizing pain in her stomach, the night crept in, slowly and then all at once. The emptiness once again threatening exposure. The fading light of the sun disappeared and everyone had left the grave. She stood alone, her black dress rippling in the eerie whisper of the darkening night. She decided it was time to leave.
***
The night had brought with it a terrible fog, which Mary enjoyed. Mary had an unnerving suspicion that the sudden creepiness was all her mother’s doing. Even from beyond the grave, her mother would never leave her side. Her mother never liked it when she walked home at night, but her father had left with her aunt and Mary had stayed at the grave, having been too distracted to notice everyone else leaving. Was the fog meant to be a warning? The fog swirled around her ankles, chilling the skin beneath the sheer fabric of the tights. The sounds of her shoes clicking on the pavement echoed into oblivion. The distant echo reminded Mary more of the sound of a puppy being maimed rather than the elegant clicking of high heels. The sound was harsh and wicked. The bright lights of cars made unfamiliar shapes in the air. They reminded her of ghosts and spirits, following her home from the graveyard. Bats flew above her head, swirling with the anxiety of a haunting presence. Owls hooted with a premonition of a frightful night to come. More than once, Mary had turned her back to see her peripheral more clearly. With each turn, she grew more surprised that no one was there. She knew something or someone had to be behind her. She could feel it. The numbness that etched across her skin was not from the winter air. The goosebumps that lined her arms were not from the icy wind. The chill down her spine was not from the cold but from the unknown. The emptiness in her stomach was not from grief. It foretold something sinister yet to be revealed. She knew something must be stalking her.
After a few minutes, all the cars had all gone from the now quiet street. She was alone, not even the bats flew above her. They had fled. Yet, there was a tingling in her back, cautioning her of prying eyes. She could not escape the feeling that he was following her, the man whom she didn’t recognize in the church.
She spun quickly and without warning, hoping she would catch a glimpse of him. But still, there was no one. She stopped moving, hoping to hear his shoes clicking on the pavement, but she heard nothing. The wind blew, roaring behind her and wrapping her hair around her face. It entangled her in a cold grasp, but she was not frightened of the wind. Mary had smelled the appealingly sweet aroma of a man’s cologne. She knew someone was there.
She began to wonder who he was… what he looked like. She wondered why he didn’t show his face at the funeral. Was he beautiful? She imagined a head of blonde curls, fighting to break free from underneath the leather fedora. She imagined blue eyes, ones that were so blue the sea itself would be envious. She imagined his teeth, glowing as white as the pearls her mother’s body wore around her neck. She imagined his perfectly tailored suit hiding under the trench coat, evident of his successful career. She pictured herself turning and he would be standing right behind her. She would not be scared. The fog would clear and the sun would miraculously emerge, forcing the night to surrender early. She would immediately fall in love with him and they would live out the rest of their lives happily, never again remembering the darkness that clouded Mary’s thoughts on this particular night. But what if he wasn’t beautiful? If he wasn’t, then he must be a monster. A terrible creature, without humanity, without emotion. One who wishes to prey on the weak and satisfy their desire for flesh.
What if he weren’t even human? Like a creature out of a horror novel, mangled and decrepit. A lifeless corpse, waiting for a victim to emerge and give into to their alluring darkness. Did he have gnarled teeth and burnt skin? His face charred and peeling from an accident, leaving him a monster to the women who walk at night. Were his eyes blood red, stained from the years of sin and torture? Mary imagined the man and the pastor walking the streets, roaming for a new kill. Could he be from hell? His horns, the key to the entrance of the underworld. His tail, used to pull her beneath the surface of the earth, where she would see her mother once more. With each new thought, Mary’s pace quickened. She heard the echoes of shoes growing louder and closer, but she could not differentiate between the echoes of her shoes and the night’s mocking laughter. Mary envisioned him behind her with an outstretched arm. His long, sharp fingernails gripping her shoulder. She dare not look. His nails would pierce her flesh and he would knock her to the ground. She would try to scream, but his eyes would mesmerize her into submission. He would make her touch his burnt skin and his hands would caress her. She would be killed, or worse.
As she ran, her heart beat faster. The pulsing of blood only provoking her predator. Mary felt the wind again, bring the sounds of laughter from her demon. He was taunting her now. She feared for her safety. She yearned for comfort. She saw her house in the distance. If she could make it, she would be safe. No vampire could enter without being invited. She hoped the creature was a vampire. She ran as fast as she could, the night engulfing her. Her eyes were blinded with water. She cried, not from fear, but from the cold. The penetrating cold forced its way onto every exposed inch of skin.
***
She reached her front door. There was silence all around her. The wind had stopped. The clicking of shoes had stopped. Mary assumed that he had found seclusion in the darkness. A perfect vantage point to watch her. She slid the key into the hole but stopped. She yearned to look once more. Maybe her mind was playing tricks on her. Maybe her mother was playing tricks on her. She turned.
The street was empty. The darkness had killed everything in its path. The single lamp glowed, but without effect. No human eye could penetrate the darkness that surrounded Mary. If the man was still there, he must have been a monster. Mary turned the key and went inside, slamming the door behind her. Her home was dark as well. She tried to turn on the light, but it flickered and went out. She thought nothing of it and went to sit by the window, looking over the street. He was out there and she was going to spot him.
She waited and waited for a shift in shadow, a slight movement in light, something that would catch her eye, but nothing. She sat without blinking, eyes never moving from the street. Hours passed, but she could not turn away. Each minute, Mary’s brain added a new horrific feature to the monster. At night he grew whiskers and claws. Hair ran down his spine and covered his arms. His eyes were blood red and his teeth were daggers awaiting some vulnerability. He had horns that curled along with a scaly tail that twisted and slithered around his legs. His face, no longer charred, but rotten, flesh falling from the dead bone beneath it. He wore a smile stretched from cheek to cheek, mocking her and feeding the pain and emptiness in her stomach. The pain and the creature were friends. They were working together to destroy Mary. She knew it.
Mary chewed on her fingernails, masticating them to the nub. Her fingers bled, the red blood flowing from the lacerations in the flesh around the nail. With each minute the pain grew and grew. Mary knew it wouldn’t be long until it ripped her open, leaving her victim to the thing waiting for her in the darkness. Her body pulsed with anxiousness. If she could only spot him, her troubles would be over, she thought. The wind howled against the window, unable to break into her haven. She continued to watch, but slowly began to drift in and out and in and out of consciousness, but a sudden crash sent a jolt through her body. Mary shot from her seat and looked out of the window. The lone street lamp was now laying on its side. Glass covering the ground, yet the light still worked.
That’s when she saw it.
The creature stood alone, illuminated by the fallen light. His silhouette outlined in yellow, but the darkness still hid his face. She stared at the man, both unmoving. What did he want? Why was he there? Does he know? Mary didn’t see horns, tails, fur, nor blood-red eyes. She only saw the outline of a figure. She wasn’t even sure if it was man or woman or monster. Mary shook with terror. Even though she couldn’t see its eyes, Mary felt as though the creature was engulfing her soul and burning her from the inside out. She couldn’t turn her face from the dark shadow, not only because it had latched on to her, but because she was scared to lose sight of it. Mary felt as though the creature was both here to destroy and save her. With that thought, the creature moved closer and out of sight. She ran to the front door and opened it. It was just there, on the street, a shape of darkness contained by the light of the lamp. A more intense glow surrounded its head, yet no detail emerged. Mary knew she was going mad. The pain in her stomach howled with more strength than the wind that threatened to push her down the icy stairs. Mary couldn’t handle the pain of her conscience any longer.
“I KILLED HER!” Mary screamed into the darkness, but nothing was there.