The Bloodridge Motel | CreepCast

Welcome back to Creepcast.

Today we are diving into our first vampire story.

Very excited about that.

We haven't done a nice little vampire story.

Isaiah said this before we were recording, and I do agree, is vampire stories are either super fun and kind of I wouldn't even like they don't even have to be innovative, but they're just fun and you're bought in on the ride, or they're terrible.

So, this is going to be a nice flip of the coin, I feel like

it is one or the other.

They're always memorable, though.

I don't think I've ever read a vampire

story that I've completely forgotten about.

It's always horrific or great.

And by horrific, I don't mean in a scary way, like it was a disaster to literature.

Exactly.

But this one comes highly recommended by some people on the subreddit and it seems that a lot of people agree with our subreddit because the author of this story is someone named jay hunter richardson or as they go by on reddit strange underscore dangerous uh and the story we're about to read today i don't know if it's uh the whole thing we're reading or if more got added but at least part of it got adapted into a novel called you're always welcome at the blood ridge motel uh that seems to have a lot of good reviews you can get on amazon and Barnes and Noble.

It seems he's written this, another horror story called Death Hovers Behind a Collection, which seems to be like a series of short horror stories.

And I'm pretty sure, according to Goodreads, at least, he also wrote a children's book called Elliot the Octopus.

He's a multifashioned king.

That's what it is.

He's a man of many flavors, it would seem.

But a bunch of people like this story.

It's been highly recommended.

Like I said, it got turned into a novel.

So someone thought it was worth something.

So hopefully it'll be a home run today.

It's been a while since we've covered a story, at least to my knowledge, that we've covered a story that got adapted into a book.

Well, no,

the one from Dopa Bean, The Dead Girl, got adapted into a book.

I think we found out at the end.

It's always cool to see stories go from these online horror communities into like, you know, tangible money for the author, then being able to, you know, build, build a backing in the literature space off of it.

That's really cool to see.

So it has Jay Hunter Richardson.

We'll have stuff linked in the description.

Be sure to support him.

It's been a while since we've had a continuation where there's multi-parts of following the same story.

The last one was the voodoo shop story, and before that was the Tales from the Gas Station.

So I always like these stories where they're little blurbs and stuff.

And I'm curious to see how that kind of compares to the other two that we've read because those are always really fun, being able to be with the same character and experience like large gaps of time.

I mean, even this, the first part is called I own a motel and I may have been renting out to, uh, and I may have been renting out rooms to a family of vampires every four years for decades.

So, I kind of like the progression that that entails as each part goes on, that like our character is going to age severely while I'm assuming this family is going to stay the same, which is kind of cool.

Yeah.

Um, and you know, as always, guys, if you like the story, please do check out the Amazon book that the guy has up right now and just support that.

And also, just want to give a quick shout out to the audio listeners over on Spotify and Apple Podcast.

If you're listening on there, be sure to give us a nice rating.

It does help.

And also our beautiful patrons who got some delicious extra content this week.

And without further ado, I would say, Isaiah, are you ready?

I'm ready to get into it.

With that, Hunter, let us begin.

You're always welcome.

That was the sign that hung outside the motel that my family had owned for generations.

A relic from the heyday of Route 66 nestled among large pines just off a two-lane mountain road.

My grandfather was a smart man and very opportunistic.

When the cave system nearby was incorporated into the National Park Services, he capitalized on it.

He built the motel and shortly after our home right next to it.

As tourism expanded, so did the motel, one room at a time.

Eventually, our old living room was converted into the offices, and the door behind the lobby desk led directly into our kitchen.

Eventually, our home and the motel were one and the same, and this is where I grew up.

My grandfather passed down the business to my father when my sister and I were born.

My father had also grown up in this isolated motel, so my mother always said he was hesitant to force the same fate on us.

When my grandfather died suddenly, though, it was less of a choice and more of a fate forcing itself on him.

I have memories of my father talking about selling it, but that seemed to fade as we settled in as a family.

Things seemed to go well for us, for a while at least.

I remember this part of my childhood fondly.

We lived in a place that seemed to be only described in fantasy books.

My sister and I would play in the woods and wander down to the caves where we enjoyed free admission just for being cute kids and the only locals for miles around.

These were the good times.

Fortunately, shortly after my older sister's ninth birthday, she began to get sick.

The doctors in the city wanted to see her often, and it was not easy for my parents to get down the mountain in our old truck.

She was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia a week before her 10th birthday.

I don't remember her death, but I remember the weeks leading up to it.

When the doctors informed them that there was nothing more that could be done, my parents insisted on bringing her back to us, to the motel.

I set up some machines and other medical stuff in her room to help ease the pain.

I was not there when she died.

My parents, for whatever reason, had sent me to my aunts.

Looking back now, I understand why.

When I returned, though, my sister was gone.

I just wanted to stop.

became a vampire 100 yeah it definitely became became a vampire there's a couple things that are kind of cool obviously that we a lot of i mean

i think that the rules of was it vampiredom vampir vampirism

it's pretty uh universally known like i like the idea that they set up the idea like i like the the idea that the motel is attached to the house so that whenever they invite them into the motel they technically can just go into their house it seems like it's all connected that's true yeah So there's that.

But then also,

I like this idea of, oh, I wasn't there.

Will my sister die?

Blah, blah, blah.

Which, you know, like you're saying, definitely a vampire.

But I like the idea of the family now basically

begging

these vampires to save their daughter.

Or whatever.

And is it going to be like an interview with a vampire situation where he's an older man and now he's just seeing his childlike sister again?

Like in one of these parts.

You know what I mean?

I like that setup a lot.

Yeah, yeah.

My mother did not take her death well.

My sister's room was cleared of any trace that she once lived there, and I was not allowed to say her name.

Every day there seemed to be less and less evidence that she had ever even lived there.

Eventually, my mother went so far as to remove any photo we had of her from the house.

By the time I was a teenager, there truly was no trace left of her existence.

I hate to admit it, but my memory of her face had even gone.

But I remembered what she smelled like.

Soft lavender.

I left the motel when I went to college and lived an exciting yet uneventful life far away from that small spot on the mountain.

But as my parents grew older, they needed more help and I felt myself drawn back to that old mountain motel.

I helped them for a good part of twelve years,

slowly taking on more and more of the responsibilities until I almost ran the place by myself.

They still insisted on certain tasks, odd things that they were not ready to give up.

The strangest involves what I have come to call the family.

My memories of them stretch back to my earliest memories of the motel.

They always stuck out because my parents seemed to treat them differently.

For as long as I can remember, they had always visited us every four years almost to the day.

The family consisted of four adults, an older couple, a middle-aged couple, two teenagers, a girl and a boy, and a younger girl around the the age of 11.

The seven of them were always quiet and polite and always stayed for a week, every four years, like clockwork.

My parents had even circled the date on our calendars, always expecting them.

My father made sure to have a room open, even though they never seemed to book ahead.

They were almost like old friends, except for the fact that they treated us like strangers every single time.

It wasn't like they didn't remember us, but more that we were inconsequential to their lives.

The interactions we had with them were so brief and infrequent that if it weren't for one odd thing, I doubt I'd have even remembered them.

But it was that one odd thing that hung over my head, never explained, but never acknowledged by my parents.

Eventually I came to accept it as, well, as something as ordinary as apple pie, but it wasn't ordinary.

There was nothing ordinary about the fact that this family never seemed to age.

They came every four years and they never missed a visit.

There were years though that I missed them, especially after my sister died.

My parents would send me to live with my aunt for a bit and it always seemed to coincide with their visit.

There was over a decade where I went without seeing them until my aunt and mother had a falling out.

I was never told what it was over, but I never saw my aunt again after the last visit.

One time when I was back from college, They were there, same as always, just as I remembered.

They'd spend their days in their room and would leave at night, always dressed like they were going someplace special.

Every evening, except for the last, I would clean the room after they left.

Beds were always made and the room was very tidy except for the ashtrays.

Whoever it was, the old man I expect, smoked like a chimney.

Even after my parents stopped allowing smoking inside, they made an exception for the family.

On the final day, though, my parents always insisted on cleaning the room.

Despite their tidiness, it always took my parents hours to clean that room.

One time they took nearly two days, but they still would not allow me to help.

On the family's last visit, while my parents were alive, I had helped my father carry carpet into the room.

We had spare rolls of carpet saved in case we ever had to fix a cigarette burn or a particularly nasty stain.

We usually only needed a few inches or a foot at a time.

Family's room, however, had the carpet replaced more times than I could count.

On this last time, my father was tired and struggled with the work.

I could tell my mother did not want me to help, but they had no choice.

They had already pulled up the old carpet before I was allowed in, but I still noticed it.

Deep brown stains in the wood beneath the carpet just outside the bathroom.

My mother was still scrubbing when I carried in the replacement roll.

Is that blood?

I asked, pointing at the frothy pink foam beneath my mother's brush.

She shot my father a look of anger.

They are hunters, he said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

The dark stained ring that always seemed to exist in the bathtub of this room suddenly started to make sense.

This is a lot of blood, I said, hoping for more answers.

It was probably a big animal, my father replied, annoyed.

It made no sense to slaughter an animal in a motel bathroom, but I realized that I wouldn't be getting any more answers from my father.

I let it be.

I figured I'd ask again in four years.

It's really funny to imagine, like, look, they, if they want to bleed a deer in our tub, that's their right.

That's their right as tenants in this hotel.

Do you think that the main character

do you think that, like, our narrator or whatever, though, is obviously like, okay, well, these guys are like murderers, but he's just not pressing his,

he's just not pressing his parents on it.

Or do you think that's a good idea?

I don't know if he thinks they kill people.

He may just think that they're, they do some weird thing in the motel.

I feel like killing people and knowing that your parents are covering up murders is a big leap from stains, right?

I mean, I think

the animal the animal is weird, though.

The idea of like they're hauling in deers and then bleeding them out in

the motel tub is pretty intense.

But I mean, what they're actually doing is doing it to people.

So I guess that's worse.

But, you know.

Yeah, but even

straight to vampires.

No, no, no.

I don't think it's vampires.

And you're probably right, too, of being like,

they're probably not thinking that it's

murderers either.

But it would be very hard to explain.

And even just trying to be like, yeah, they kill animals.

It's like, why don't you do that outside, dude?

It's like, why not?

Did they ask you to do it?

Are you just okay with this, dad?

Someone's getting out the animals on the property.

Yeah.

What of it?

In this country, it's a man's right, what he wants to do in his own bathtub with his own deer carcass.

I do think it's cool that it's a mountain town hotel to where I wonder if the vampires are going to go there because they're like feeding on like lumberjack or that lumberjacks or if because the motel is just like continuously added, if this like long-ass motel is just a buffet for guests.

Oh, that could be cool.

Yeah.

That could be sick.

I love the old mountain motel setting too.

It reminds me of like a Twin Peaks, Alan Wake sort of vibe.

I love that.

Yeah,

you can't beat the Mountaintown kind of like

aesthetic.

It's the classic, especially with supernatural stories.

Yeah, so much mystery already behind it.

Also, so much isolation.

You know what I mean?

Like beautiful isolation.

It's weird.

I didn't get a chance though.

Both of my parents passed within months of each other.

I'd like to say they died peacefully at home, same as my sister, but they did not.

My father had a heart attack.

While he was in the hospital, my mother had a stroke.

My father died shortly after, but my mother seemed to hold on for longer than anybody thought possible.

She was waiting for something, but she never revealed what it was.

She died in her sleep with an immense look of sadness on her face.

Damn.

So they both wanted to become vampires too.

You know, that's probably what the deal is.

They let people, they let the vampires kill there, and then it's like, when it comes our family's time to die,

you take them.

You make them immortal, and then we'll eventually be reunited.

That's like another kind of, I guess not trope, but that's another kind of thing where humans, they'll have like human assistance all with the hope that they become immortal.

Like they will

make them one of them their own.

Whatever.

Yeah.

As we expected, they left the motel to me.

The lawyer explained that the will was very brief and uncomplicated.

My parents had no money saved and the motel was their only asset.

So I was given everything.

They did leave me something else, though.

In addition to the burden of a family business, they left three envelopes with very specific instructions on when to open them.

The The first one was to be opened when I took over ownership of the motel.

The second was to be opened in case of an emergency, namely a financial one.

And the third was to be opened by my aunt in case I passed away.

The letter within the first envelope was brief and to the point.

It explained that my parents had a long-standing agreement with the family and it was best not to question it.

They mentioned the blood, but told me to ignore it and just make sure there was no trace left after they checked out.

It was very explicit that I'd not ask questions and that if anybody outside of the family were to ask about the family, I was to deny everything.

And something I found funny and not surprising, the family's odd trait of seemingly never aging was not mentioned in the letter.

After reading it twice, I stored the letter in the cash drawer and forgot about it.

Shortly after my mother passed away, the family arrived.

Seven of them piled out of the same old station wagon and walked together to my office.

Without my parents insisting on doing it themselves, this was my first time I'd actually checked the family in.

The old man greeted me as if he knew me.

He did not ask about my parents, and in an odd way, he spoke to me as if I had always been the one to check them in.

All but the little girl seemed to watch me without expression.

The little girl, however, broke away from the group and stepped around the desk and knocked on the door leading to our kitchen.

None of the family reacted in any way to her actions.

Can I help you?

Is she in there?

She asked, almost emotionless.

It's just me now.

My parents passed away a few months back.

I explained as I grabbed the room key.

That's got to be his little sister, right?

100%.

Forever stuck at the age of 11, which is honestly like a torment in itself, right?

Yeah, I mean, it's eternity at 11 years old.

Yeah.

Interview with the vampire always had like an interesting part of that of like the little girl like enjoyed being a little girl for a while a while.

But as the years roll on, it's like her mind evolves to where she's like, I'm just a child.

Like, it's pretty much just a prison sentence.

It's, you know,

it's fucked.

The older man took the key without acknowledgement of the fact that my parents were dead, but the little girl broke down.

She began to sob and yell for her mother, but instead, one of the teenagers took her by the arm and pulled her along as they left together.

Her sad eyes met mine, and for a moment, I felt an unspoken grief between us over my parents' absence.

I realized it was the first time that anybody outside of myself had shown any reaction to their loss.

It felt...

good.

It made me feel less alone in this isolated little motel.

I watched as the family dragged the little girl back to their room to unpack and settle in.

I remembered then how my mother used to treat this little girl.

She always seemed to dote on her when they would visit.

After my sister's death, my mother was less than affectionate, especially to children that weren't her own.

Except that is, for this little girl, that came around every four years.

Their stay was uneventful, and after that night, even the little girl all but ignored my presence.

They left at night and returned before morning, usually without notice.

Their rooms, again, were always tidy, except for the cigarettes.

Before they checked out, I read the letter from the first envelope one more time.

It had also mentioned that at checkout, they would pay in cash and leave behind a small paper package sealed with twine.

The note instructed me to never open the parcel, but instead put it in a safe safe that I had no idea existed before reading the letter.

The safe itself was filled with more small paper bundles tied with twine.

I did as the letter instructed.

Sure enough, after their final night, there was blood.

It wasn't a lot of blood, but enough to cause concern.

How much is an amount of blood to cost?

I feel like any amount

beyond like a drop would be a concerning amount.

Yeah, even like, yeah,

yeah, basically.

If it didn't look like it was like, oh, someone pricked their finger, I would definitely be like, okay, someone was bleeding in here.

What the fuck?

No, it's just one splash.

They just sliced open their forearm.

They're probably just cut their

sign.

That's okay.

This couldn't be for more than one person.

So it's okay.

Don't worry about it.

This is definitely six or seven deer.

It looks like they had a good hunting trip, huh?

Yeah.

Wow.

The hunting is so good around here.

Yeah, they're checking out.

There's just blood all over their clothes and their mouth it's like y'all have a good hunting trip good time huh yeah a lot of elk out this season huh

just drenched no one acknowledges yeah exactly yes my boy

yeah yeah midway through the story it's like they all had a distinct transylvanian accent yeah exactly do not worry about it we are fine

you i love your are you from wisconsin just like totally oblivious to everything.

Is that a Midwest accent I hear?

You know, I had a friend from Chicago.

It's like,

like, oh, we miss your parents.

You're very stupid.

Yeah, they're all in, they're, they're like full-blown Dracula.

They're in the coats with like the count pieces and stuff.

Yeah, the widows peeking everything too in their hair.

Yeah.

The bathtub had been filled with it and then drained.

Filled with blood?

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, that's not a concerning amount.

He says it wasn't a lot of blood, but enough to cause concern.

The bathtub had been filled with it and then drained, leaving behind a crimson film ring around it.

How much?

That's like dozens of people to bleed that much.

That's

a

forbidden pudding pack, is what that is.

that room would smell terrible, dude.

Oh, yeah, the iron, yeah, the iron in the middle.

I think that smell would be.

Yeah, if there was that much, fuck, that'd be brilliant.

Hold on, hold on.

What?

Can you do this also with the smoke, maybe?

Oh, to cover up the smell, you're probably right.

Maybe.

I feel like the blood would win, but yeah, that could be a reason.

Uh, what, oh, okay.

What's a concerning amount of blood to him?

If like three dozen bodies worth of blood, or two dozen, isn't enough?

Because, like,

would it take like the shining elevator for him to be like, I should call a manager.

Okay, this is concerning.

I should get someone else.

This is getting out of hand.

It's just like it's ankle deep across the whole hotel.

He has rain boots on.

He's like,

walking through the hotel.

Okay.

People are freaking out.

He has a roller on the carpet.

He's like, it's only two inches today.

This isn't that bad.

Two inches.

I really only freak out at six or seven.

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The tiled floors were sticky and the car.

Oh my gosh.

The tiled floors were sticky.

And the carpet had soaked in whatever bled out of the bathroom.

I replaced the carpet as my father had shown me and scrubbed the bathroom until no trace was left.

Looking back, of course it seems

it seems suspicious now, but it was always that way with with the family.

Like, well, in hindsight, knowing what I know now, it was a little weird.

At the time, who cares if they killed 16 deer?

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but it was always that way with the family i couldn't really say for sure where the blood came from and i never wanted to ask however if the cops showed up one day i'd have probably told them but nobody ever asked and there was never anything on the news so i just told myself the same lie they were nothing more than a family on a hunting trip in three peace suits and Sunday dresses.

I ran the motel without incident in the years after that, but it was not easy.

I should mention that while the motel is located near a tourist spot, there's little else to attract people.

In fact, we're located on what some call a dead road.

Not a dead end, but a dead road.

Long stretch of highway without any signs of civilization.

It's one of those highways that people seem to go missing on.

Ours is just one of many around the country.

We once had a writer stay with us while my parents were still around.

He told me that he was a true crime writer.

He said that he was working on research for a book about what he called the Ring of Fire, a connection of dead roads all across the country, a giant ring of asphalt-paved death.

He said that lots of famous serial killers traveled the ring.

His book was going to be about connecting the dots to unclaimed victims.

He told me that I shouldn't worry about it, though, because the dead are always faceless.

It was always sex workers or indigenous folk or just trifters who lost their way.

He explained that they're considered less dead to the cops, that their deaths don't mean as much as a politician or a pretty white girl.

He said that he would come back through when he was actually writing the book.

He never came back and I never saw anything about his book coming out.

It's funny to imagine this guy is just completely oblivious.

Like, there's just people missing left and right, and the family has blood everywhere.

He's like, oh, that's kind of strange.

Anyway, I better get back to my thinking about my dead sister.

Oh, hello, little girl.

It's always the same age.

The family, however, they always came back.

Four years after the last visit, they arrived three days after the date circled in red by my father long before he died.

I'd actually waited for them.

You see, when everything seemed to shut down last year and budgets were cut, the caves closed down for the foreseeable future.

Already, tourism had waned in the last few years and it was getting difficult to keep the motel open.

I was running out of options, so I opened the second envelope.

Which, let me just say,

if

anyone leaves me letters when they die, and they're like, open this one when this happens, open this one.

I'm reading all of them.

I'm reading all of them.

Same setting that day to be thrown away in the trash.

Never fall.

Burned.

Just gone.

Yeah.

Fire fodder for the cold winter night.

Actually, it couldn't have been a hotter night.

I still make a fire.

I'm going to be like Michael Caine in the dark night.

Like, oh, this letter was left by your lover, you know,

before they died.

I'm burning it in the kitchen right now.

I'll shot a baby with a jewel the size of a tangerine.

The fuck are you talking about, Alfred?

Some mentors

watch the world burn.

Have you seen

the fuck up and do my laundry, Alfred?

Have you seen

you seen

the picture of him about Bane?

Yeah.

Okay.

Bane is the scariest guy I've ever seen in my life.

I think about that like once a month and just start giggling.

It's such a funny

idea of him just crying to Batman like, this guy is so scary.

Bone is the scariest guy I've ever seen in my life.

Truly the most frightening man we'd ever seen before in me, Lord.

Master Wayne.

Master Wayne.

No.

Inside was another letter.

It instructed me to keep the motel open no matter what, even if the guests stopped coming.

It then instructed me to open one of the brown paper parcels in the safe if I was ever in trouble, so I did.

Beneath the paper, wrapped tightly in twine, was a bundle of money.

It was various bills stacked in no particular order, but one bundle alone was enough to carry me through a slow season.

There were dozens of these paper bundles.

Despite what the letter said, I opened them all immediately.

There you go.

That's the spirit.

Now we're talking.

The oldest ones held currency I barely recognized.

It was still American, but it was long out of circulation.

I'd planned to stay open long enough to collect one more bundle from these familiar strangers I'd known my whole life.

When they arrived three days late, I already knew something was off, though you wouldn't have known from their usual unemotional demeanor.

What I had always remembered as a family of seven arrived as only six.

One of the teenagers, the boy, was not with them.

This was not acknowledged by anyone upon check-in.

Little girl stayed beside the teenage girl this time too, but her eyes were still fixed on the door to our kitchen.

At this point, I had cleaned out all the other rooms except theirs.

Nobody had stayed the night in weeks anyway, so I took my time with it.

When the time came for them to check out, they paid in cash and handed me the brown paper parcel wrapped in twine.

I hate to say this, but your family will officially be the last guests we host here.

I explained, trying to break the news casually.

The man stared at me blankly.

Little girl looked up at the teenager, but the teenage girl did not react.

The man did not seem upset nor happy about it.

As always, he was emotionless.

Okay,

he said with a fake smile.

With that, he turned to leave.

The family followed after him, but the little girl pulled away from the teenager.

She stood there, staring at me for a very long time.

You better hurry, I said, pointing at her family, trying to break the awkwardness.

Do you not remember me?

Of course I do.

You never change.

I could see the old man out in the parking lot as he packed up the old station wagon.

I saw him notice the little girl's absence.

Without any urgency, he put down the bag and came to retrieve the little girl.

As he approached the office door, the little girl stepped closer to the desk.

If you aren't here when we return, they will leave me.

They will put me back in the caves and never return.

What do you mean?

I asked, my mind racing.

We're too young.

It should never have been turned.

Her words were cut off by the opening of the door.

The old man stood in the doorway, his gaze fixed on the little girl.

Neither of them exchanged words.

The little girl left, not before giving me one more pleading glance.

Okay.

If you aren't here, they will leave me.

Yep.

So they'll just put her in the caves because she's too young, I guess.

I think it's, I think it's a, it's an, I think it's insinuating that they're going to kill her.

Whatever.

Potentially.

Or they just leave wild vampire children out there.

Yeah, but I would assume that if they're leaving her in the cave, she's probably going to starve, right?

Yeah, if she can't can't find her way out, probably.

Once they left, I waited to clean the room.

I counted the bundle of cash left in the paper parcel.

It was enough to carry me two seasons, but more so, along with the rest, it was enough to start a new life.

I opened a bottle of wine and drank half before even grabbing the cleaning supplies.

I knew what kind of mess awaited me in that bathroom.

At least this time, I wouldn't have to replace the carpet.

When I finally made it to the old room, it was morning.

I opened the door, and the rising sun cast a light across the neatly made beds and overstuffed ashtray.

As I walked towards the bathroom, something on the bed caught my eye.

Laid neatly on one of the seemingly unused pillows was a photograph.

I put down my cleaning supplies and picked up the photo.

It was torn on one side, so it was only half of the picture.

Shouldn't have been shocking, but it did catch me off guard.

It was a photo of the young girl, and she was holding hands with another young girl.

Me.

Why did I think the author was a guy this entire time?

There was no indication.

I thought it was a guy, too.

I am stupid.

It's like, I just got hit with the whole like, is Dr.

Pepper a woman thing?

Like, I've.

Like, my apologies, ma'am.

It made sense, since I'm sure we had known each other our whole lives.

There was nothing unusual about me except for how happy I looked.

Her, on the other hand, seemed somehow different.

It took me a moment to register what was off about her, but when I did, I gasped.

She was younger.

Not much younger, she appeared now, but younger than I had seen her in decades.

The photo itself was taken here at the motel just outside of the office.

I'd recognized the background, not only because it was a familiar space, but because I had seen this photo before somewhere.

It clicked.

I abandoned the cleaning and ran back to the office with the photo in hand.

Hung above the fireplace in the office, just across from the desk, was a collection of photos my mother had curated over the years.

It was mostly my parents and I, but there was also snapshots of famous guests or old regulars.

I ran my fingers over the torn edge of the photo of myself and the little girl, and I remembered one specific photo that hung over the fireplace.

It was small and odd-shaped, but it was my mother's favorite because of how happy my father and her looked.

It was just the two of them standing outside the office, smiling.

It was taken in the same spot as the one of me and the little girl.

I ripped the photo of my parents off the wall and broke the frame, too impatient to be delicate.

I pulled a small old shaped photo from the frame and confirmed my suspicion.

It was torn.

I held the photo of my parents up with the photo of the little girl and myself.

They were two halves of the same photo.

Though I couldn't remember her face, I knew immediately who the little girl was.

I held the photo close to my nose and breathed in deep, soft lavender.

She was my older sister.

I now understood the deal my parents had made.

How fun.

What a great first part.

That was pretty good.

That's good.

I also like how it doesn't, like, the title mentions vampires and it doesn't beat around the bush with like, what are they?

Are they creepy?

Stuff like that.

It also doesn't take it in a hokey direction of the vampires just being like, you know.

That like we have a deal with your parents where we get to kill whatever we want and then we get a, you know, whatever.

It's just like,

it's all very like they just have a deal.

Yeah.

You don't have to explain it.

We know that kind of thing.

You know, that's why I like the story does.

And I like the emotional tie-in of, yeah, the parcels are just filled with tons of cash and the person's like, okay, well, I'm going to open these immediately and just cash this in.

And then now there's the emotional tie-in, though, of, okay, well, if I close shop now, they're going to kill my sister, who I thought has been dead this whole time after her parents have died, which is uh, which is fun because now this little vampire girl is the only family she has left.

Yeah, so now you're in like this weird, like, um,

which can you even save your sister?

It's like, oh, I'll keep, I'll take care of my vampire little sister, or basically

younger than me.

I don't know if, if you can, I don't know if you realistically think that you can take care of her, but I can see people reckless, recklessly and emotionally doing a futile gesture in the hope that it is beneficial or like you're holding on to something, you know?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I think more importantly,

this story has made me spark an idea to make a short story of my own called

Penis Toes.

Because I was thinking about it.

And because I don't know, no, no, no, listen, listen.

How scary would it be?

And really follow me with this.

You wake up.

The knee thing got me thinking.

I was like, that is creepy.

What if you woke up?

Actually, if any viewers out there male and female you wake up oh you know you're stretching at your feet you do like one of those nice big stretches oh maybe give yourself a charlie horse ow

that shouldn't have done that and you step out of your bed and as you step on the floor you notice that it feels like you have no bones in your feet or in your toes you're like what the fuck you look down and it's just different sizes penises all some circumcised some not And all of your toes are just different lengths and girths of penises.

And now you have to figure out why you have these weird and like you try to walk you have to learn how to walk again kind of thing that'd be kind of scary huh would that be a good story

and they all pee like you have a new you go to the doctor and he's like how is it possible you have all these so then at different points of the day you're like i gotta pee and then you don't know which toe is gonna come out of or if it's gonna come out of your regular penis

Or it would be funnier.

Would it be funner if you peed out of everything at the same time?

It'd probably be too fun.

You'd probably need to make it random.

Because you used your body.

What's wrong with you, Jake?

Sorry, Rebecca.

I'm just a bit sad.

I

have penis toes.

They can't be that bad.

Oh my god, Jake!

Now that you know my secret, I have to strangle you.

He becomes a murderer.

The penis toast strangler strikes again this week.

I piss my pants.

He's talking about his shoes.

Come on, I know that gotcha.

That's a good one.

That's a good bit.

I keep paying myself.

Just ruined a bunch of pairs of new balances.

Part 2.

I'd made the decision to close the motel long before my sister left the photograph.

The plans were in motion, and it seemed as if nothing was going to stop the sale.

That is, till he arrived.

I hadn't bothered to clean their room after the family had left, too emotionally drained to take on the horrifying task.

Instead, I retreated back into the house to surround myself with memories and make a meal that my mother used to make for my sister.

Spaghetti and meatballs with garlic toast.

It was comforting.

I was cleaning up after dinner when I heard the front door open to the office.

The old service bell at the front desk rang loud enough for me to hear.

The vacancy sign had long been extinguished, and the front door to the office had been locked after the family left.

Whoever had rung the bell, they were not welcomed in.

Garlic toast.

I opened the door slowly with the what?

Garlic toast.

Yeah, garlic toast, yes.

Yeah, good, good, good call, hunter.

Good, good pickup.

Proud of you.

Good, good job.

Garlic.

I opened the door slowly, with the kitchen knife gripped tightly in my hand.

We're closed.

The door swung open to an empty room.

I am late.

Said a voice from the darkest corner of the room.

He looked like an animal cowering in the corner, balled up and small.

He was more of an unkempt shape than a person covered in mud and grime.

When he stood up, I saw how bad he looked.

The dirt reached every crevice as if he were buried in it, and only the whites of his eyes stood out from the black coat of mud.

He was thin, almost emaciated, but still had a strength about him.

I'm sorry, but we're closed.

But the sign,

he said, pointing up at the you're always welcome sign hanging just outside the window.

That uh, we don't have any clean rooms.

I'm sorry.

You'll have to find somewhere else.

I said, feeling a sudden sense of discomfort.

His wide eyes met mine with the stare so intense it felt as if he were looking straight through me.

But we already have a room, he said.

His voice was soft, yet commanding, and wholly devoid of emotion.

It was then that I recognized him.

He was the teenage boy from the family.

Though thinner than I remembered, his familiar young features were caked in filth, but I knew it was him.

He knew that I knew.

Have they departed?

I nodded.

have they left me anything yeah what is this voice you're doing right now what it's a vampire voice you know dude here i am

trying my best to give you a cool vampire voice which i think is pretty cool vampire get the voice right

And then you don't even respond to my penis story, the penis foot story that I think is actually kind of sick, penis toes, which I am trademarking that.

That is going to be something that you see on Netflix.

It's going to be a Mike Flanagan short series.

It's going to be pretty good.

But you know what?

Whatever, man.

I don't need your fucking approval.

That's all I'm going to say.

I'm not bummed down or anything.

Let's just say that.

He asked, his voice finally cracking.

I did not know how to answer.

I wasn't sure what he meant.

Have they left me anything behind?

He said, sounding suddenly desperate.

I don't know, I said, pulling the room keys from their hook.

But you're welcome to check.

Took the keys from my hands, his eyes lingering on my arm.

It was as if he saw something I did not.

Thank you.

He said, and left the office, trailing mud out the door.

It wasn't until he was gone that I realized the trail of mud only led outside.

Oh,

what does that mean?

He's flying.

Oh, he flew in?

Yeah, he's floating, or maybe he came in as a bat.

Oh,

as a bat.

That's right.

That's right.

Yeah.

And he smelled the garlic bread.

And he did.

Oh, God.

That's totally stinky.

Yunki.

Don't like that no more.

Put that away.

And then he just lunges at her.

That night, I cannot sleep.

I watched his room from my window and waited for him to leave, but once he closed that door, it seemed as though he disappeared inside.

He never even turned on the light.

I only left my perch long enough to make coffee, but even then I listened for the creak of that heavy old door.

Never did hear it.

When day came, I decided to check on him.

I knocked many times and announced my intent to enter.

He did not respond.

The door opened with that familiar old creak and sun once again crept into that dark room.

Cigarette smoke still hung heavy in the air and danced in the beams of light.

The room key said idle next to the ashtray.

Okay, hold on.

No, we read that wrong.

It's saying that

he

the mud only led inside as then he walked down the hall to the room, but then never left the room.

So there's no flying anywhere.

He walked into the office and then to the hotel room, but then never left the hotel room.

He might have flown there in some way.

I don't think that's what was implied at all, actually.

I think all the footprints led inside.

Yeah.

It just didn't lead back outside of the hotel room.

Yeah, I'm saying that that's all fine.

I just mean like when he before getting to the hotel,

he probably flew there.

Your line's up.

It's a quote.

Hello?

The room itself appeared empty, but I traced his muddy tracks from the door to the table, then to the bathroom.

He had smoked the old butts left by the others and left nothing behind but burnt filters.

The beds, again, were untouched.

I knocked gently on the bathroom door.

Are you okay?

The carpet sloshed under feet, wet from the bathroom overflow.

I'm coming in,

I announced, already turning the knob.

As the bathroom door turned inward, it pushed aside a layer of sticky, wet sludge.

It was a mixture of deep red and earthen brown.

The putrid, sweet smell of decay hit before my eyes could comprehend the horror of what lay before me.

The bathtub was half filled with thick old blood and clumps of mud left behind by the boy.

His clothes were piled in a damp, muddy heap just outside the bath.

The floor was sticky with blood and dirt.

Still, I stepped inside.

The bathtub was full enough with the gruesome sludge that something could still be hiding beneath the surface.

As I had done many times before, I reached in and pulled the plug.

My hand brushed against something inside, and I recoiled.

The bubbling gurgle of rotting body fluids oozed down the drain as I waited to see what was hidden inside.

Thankfully, it was not the boy.

It was the severed leg of a deer that had brushed my hand.

The hoof was gnarled, cracked, and the leg itself was nothing more than coarse flesh suspended by tendons still clinging to the bone.

So is it saying that they're actually eating deer or the deer are just a cover-up for all the blood and stuff?

I mean, I would assume that this time that they're actually eating deer.

If it's a dead end highway, I'm going to assume that there's not tons of people around to eat.

Yeah.

But

I would assume it's both.

You know what I mean?

I think this time it's just a deer, because he seems desperate and starving.

Yeah.

The muck left behind in the emptied bath was a slurry of torn organ meat and unrendered fat.

The remnants of a slaughtered beast.

In all my years cleaning, they had never left this kind of evidence.

It was always blood, massive amounts of blood and bile, but never anything that couldn't be drained.

I assume then this was left by the boy.

I did my best to shovel the decaying bits of carcass into a plastic bag and then used old sheets and towels to sop up the puddles of putrid death that remained.

I threw all of it in the burned pit out back.

I emptied an entire bucket of bleach into the bathroom just to hide the smell.

Exhausted, I fell asleep on the bed, steeped the odors of death and cigarette smoke.

I dreamt of my sister.

For the first time, in as long as I could remember, I could see her face again.

When I awoke, it was still the afternoon, but the boy had not returned.

I was hungry and covered in filth.

I showered in the hottest water I could stand, hoping to burn the odor from my skin.

Afterwards, I made a sandwich and returned to my perch at the window.

I had left the door open to air out the room.

I figured that if he had returned, he would close it, but it was open.

Night came and I wondered if he had just gone on ahead, searching for the family.

I decided that I should close the door and lock it.

I had taken his key with me after I'd cleaned, so if he wanted back in, he'd have to ask.

The moment my foot stepped past the threshold of the room, I saw his wide eyes shrouded in the shadows across the room.

He was standing just outside the open bathroom.

He stood there, motionless and nude, covered in something else.

It wasn't the dirt like before, but a deep red crust, a cracked draw on his skin.

It is not enough.

It has rotted, he said from the shadows.

What are you?

He waited an eternity to answer, just staring at me from across the room.

You know, I said in a weak, hushed voice.

I don't.

Is my sister, is she like you?

He nodded in a way that seemed he was confused that I was even asking.

That's awesome.

Are you fucking dumb?

Yeah.

Well, I mean, it's like,

yeah, your sister dies, quote unquote, and then she's there every four years for like the past several decades.

It's pretty funny.

He's just like, dude, are you serious?

It's been like 30 years and she has not changed.

Are you fucking dense?

Oh my god.

Is my sister like you guys?

Bro.

Are you fucking me right now?

Because of the accent, now it just sounds like one of those like Slavic gangster types in the Egyptian.

Yeah, but see,

does that kind of that kind of tracks like a Sylvanian kind of vampire family, right?

Yeah, I get it.

It would be too weird

chain smoking like Russian cigarettes in atales to me.

Well, no,

luckily, I would agree with the Adidas track suit, but they've said too many times that they're dressed up all fancy, which maybe for Russian people, the Adidas track suit is fancy.

That could be the fit.

That could be the three-piece suit.

God, that'd be so sick if Dracula has Adidas tracksuit on.

He's just just like, I seriously want to drink tons of blood right now.

With the imported gold chains.

Yeah, exactly.

Imported gold chains.

He's just like,

exactly.

I want to go to an EDM music festival immediately.

I stepped backwards out of the room.

He stepped forward into the faint moonlight shining across the floor.

His body was covered in dry blood and his hair was matted in a thick black tangle.

Please don't, don't hurt me.

His eyes grew wide as he approached, for he stopped suddenly.

His coolest features were suddenly awash in amber headlights.

He recoiled and retreated back into the shadows of the room.

I turned to see the blinding beams of an old pickup truck as it pulled into our parking lot.

I glanced back at the boy.

He was gone.

The door to the truck opened, and a tall, sinewy man with close-cropped hair and thick-rimmed glasses stepped out.

He was an older gentleman, gray around the temples, but not elderly by any means.

His stature was intimidating and his voice was deep.

Van Helzing.

Hello, he said, still hiding behind the bright lights of the truck.

Can I help you?

I asked, shielding my eyes.

Sorry.

He apologized and leaned back into the cab and turned off the lights.

I felt myself trapped between the monster behind me and the stranger approaching from the front.

Without realizing, I had backed myself against the wall.

You work here?

He asked, noting my retreat and stepping back himself.

No vacancies.

No vacancies.

I shouted, slightly louder than needed.

He looked around the lot and squinted at the darkened motel sign.

Hmm.

Alright.

We're uh we're close now.

I'm sorry.

I'd like to stay the night if possible.

It's been a bit of a drive, and we both know there ain't any options anywhere close.

We don't have any rooms available.

What about that one?

He asked, pointing behind me to the open door.

It um it isn't clean.

I don't mind.

He said, closing the door to his truck.

I can pay in cash if you fancy it.

I shook my head.

He leaned one hand on the truck.

None of the rooms are furnished.

This one was but this one was, but an animal got in and died.

I was cleaning it.

It wouldn't be sanitary.

He stepped forward into the lights of the motel.

His His face was hard and serious and altogether unsettling.

I couldn't help but think back to that rider about what he said.

This man could be one of them, I thought.

Here I was with my back to a danger I could not comprehend while in front of me stood a potential serial killer.

Must have read the discomfort on my face.

Okay then.

Do you mind if I park here for the night?

Sleep in my truck?

He asked, trying to sound disarming.

I thought about it long and hard.

I don't see why not, I said against my better judgment.

He smiled and opened the door to his truck.

Appreciate it, he said, disappointed.

Turned back towards the room, but even with the light from the truck, I could not see inside.

Closed the door and locked it.

After that, I locked every door I walked through until I was in my own bedroom.

Still uneasy about the two threats that were sleeping only a few hundred feet away, I decided to arm myself.

I don't like guns.

Never owned one and I don't care to ever buy one.

But my father taught me how to shoot.

In fact, he taught me to shoot with my grandfather's old revolver, the same one that was locked in a box beneath my bed.

It was my father's lockbox, and aside from the gun, I had no idea what I'd find.

I'd use a hammer, an old screwdriver to break the lock, and after only a few attempts, I was able to pop it open.

As expected, the gun set atop a pile of important documents, photos, and small mementos that meant something to my father at some point in his life.

Six loose bullets rattled around the steel box.

They appeared to be handmade, not purchased and somehow older than myself, each one tipped in shiny polished silver.

I loaded the revolver and set it aside.

The photos hidden beneath it were not ones I'd recognized from my childhood.

They were all for some reason, private to him.

The top photograph was of my parents, years before I was born.

My aunt that I hadn't seen in years stood next to my mother, smiling and holding the hand of a man in his early 30s.

The man looked eerily familiar.

He reminded me, maybe, too much of the middle-aged man in the family.

Though the man in the photo looked too happy to be the expressionless shell I'd known my whole life.

Photo beneath that one was of my grandfather standing stone-faced in front of the earliest version of the motel.

Beside him were four others, who were without a doubt four members of the family.

None of them, my grandfather included, were smiling.

To the right of my grandfather stood the older two members of the family, then the middle-aged woman and the teenage girl.

The boy and the middle-aged men were missing.

Photo was old and faded, but even then it was clear they looked the same as they did only a few days ago.

So the middle-aged man was

her uncle then, right?

Because it's like, oh, he was holding hands with my aunt.

But

who would the teenage boy be then just an unrelated boy or someone connected to them i guess i think that we might find out more through the other parts but it almost seems as if with the silver

not vampire hunters but i'm wondering if that's the case also why the mom and like almost makes you think that they were like purging the mountain of these evils or something like that And that's like maybe like why the aunt and the mom had a falling out because she's like, you're just letting them stay there and do shit, you know?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Beneath that, I found my sister's birth certificate.

Old bonds, the deed to the motel, and other uninteresting documents of worth.

Below everything, though, was one more thing.

A stiff card wrapped in the same paper the family's money was wrapped in, tied with the same twine.

I opened it.

I unwrapped it to reveal the backside of a photograph, newer than the others, with Chicago 1974 written in a handwriting that was foreign to me.

It was not my mother's or father's.

I flipped the photo and I felt a cold chill run down my spine.

I saw myself, younger than I had ever seen in any family photo.

I was dressed in a corduroy overalls and standing in front of an old building.

The oddest thing, though, was that I was standing between two vaguely familiar adults holding their hands.

All three of us were smiling.

Wish I could say I was able to place their faces, but I could not.

I had to assume they were family friends, but to my knowledge, my parents never had many friends, and those that did be the ones to visit us.

My entire life, my parents made the motel the priority.

We had never taken a family trip together outside of a holiday weekend at my aunt's.

In fact, as far as I could recall, neither of them had ever mentioned visiting Chicago, and they definitely never said anything about seeing friends there.

Who were these people?

Where were my parents?

Why wasn't my sister with me?

My breath grew more rapid with each thought and I slammed the box shut.

I already had too many questions that seemed to be impossible to answer.

I was not ready for more.

Thankfully, the exhaustion overwhelmed my mind and I eventually drifted off to sleep.

The loaded gun set safely on the nightstand next to me.

I had even pushed a chair beneath the knob of my bedroom door.

With the heavy curtains pulled closed, the sun never crept in and I awoke very late in the morning.

Even before coffee, I made my way out to the parking lot.

The truck, however, was already gone.

I started to feel a tinge of guilt for judging the strange man as I did.

That guilt, though, would only deepen as the day progressed.

I opened the door to the boys' room.

The morning sun flooded in immediately, casting away any dark corners.

Immediately, the smell of iron strung my nose.

As I stepped up to the bathroom door, my feet once again squished into the soaking wet carpet.

The door was unlocked, but as I opened it, I heard the familiar slosh of coagulated blood being pushed aside.

I stepped into a familiar, but no less unsettling sight of a tiled white bathroom coated in a crimson blood.

I prayed to myself that it was again that of an animal, though even that did not set well with my conscience.

Just to be safe, I decided to clean.

I needed to be sure that no trace of the teenage boy was left behind, just in case somebody else came through unexpected.

That strange man now made me nervous in an entirely different way.

I was so focused that I forgot to make myself coffee.

Instead, I went straight to work sopping up the massive amounts of blood.

It was only when I was on the floor scrubbing that I noticed some of the blood seep through seams in the tiled floor.

Narrow cracks in three straight lines forming a box against the wall.

I then noticed that the baseboard beneath the sink had been removed and there were small finger-sized holes in the floor where it met the wall.

Crawled across the floor, still slick with blood, and slipped my fingers in.

I was able to get underneath and pull up what turned out to be a door or hatch in the floor.

So I pulled it open, blood seeped down into the crawl space beneath the bathroom.

Crawl space that until now, I had no idea even existed.

I had no choice but to investigate.

It was not large, but deep enough to walk through without crawling.

It spread maybe 10 feet in every direction.

It was dark, but my phone's flashlight was bright enough to reveal even the furthest corner.

Thankfully, the boy was nowhere to be seen.

The floor beneath me was soft dirt, made muddy from the blood that seeped down.

The walls appeared to be crafted from old red brick and mortared in place, unlike any other foundation on the property.

Words written in an unfamiliar language were carved into the walls.

It smelled of smoke, stale breath, and iron.

I moved further in to explore the hidden room.

Strange crystalline rocks were scattered half half-buried around the floor, much like the ones you'd find in the now-closed caverns.

The most unsettling aspect, though, was the heaps of soft dirt that were arranged in seven large piles throughout the room.

One for each member of the family.

Immediately, the room itself felt heavy with dread.

I got out as quickly as possible.

I left the crawl space as I had found it and replaced the baseboard, just in case.

I finished cleaning the bathroom and doused everything to bleach, careful to avoid the cracks in the floor.

When I returned to the office, there was a message flashing in red on the office phone.

I checked and it was from my lawyer, so I returned the call.

He informed me that the buyer from the property was expected to stop by.

I was told he wanted to see it firsthand, but he was an odd fellow and may not announce his intentions.

I could only assume it was the man from last night.

He then changed the subject with a somber tone in his voice.

He asked me if I heard from anyone in my family.

No,

I told him.

Aside from my aunt, I had no family left.

Well then, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but she passed a few weeks ago.

What happened?

Uh, well, from what I understand, there's a fire in her property and everything she possessed had perished in it.

And along with her, her estate had a little trouble getting in touch with me.

So

the business is gone?

I asked, because she, like my parents, owned a small hospitality business.

While it wasn't a motel, it was what you would consider a bed and breakfast.

Honestly, it was less of a business, more of a hobby for her.

Everything.

A small part of me was relieved that I wouldn't be burned with that place as well.

There was a moment of awkward silence, and I could hear him shuffling through papers on his end of the line.

Is there anything I need to do, or are you going to take care of the transfers of estate or whatever?

I mean, other than the property.

I don't know what else I'd want of hers.

Hell, even the property.

I'm not sure.

I'm not sure I want to deal with it.

This place is enough.

He didn't laugh, said I just heard more shuffling.

That is the strange thing.

She left you nothing.

It's fine with me.

I'd rather not deal with it.

Well,

you still may have to.

You see, she left everything to your sister.

How old was her will?

She updated it after your parents passed.

Oh,

but I guess now would be the time to open the envelope they left for her.

Might have some answers.

Okay, I'll do that.

Conversation shifted into other aspects of the cell and what I would need to do to prepare for it.

All the while, the man from last night was in the back of my mind.

In an unexpected turn of events, I was hoping he would return.

After the call, I tried to push it all out of my mind.

The boy was gone, and as far as I knew, the man had left in the morning as well.

I was alone again, high in the mountains in this isolated, lonely motel.

I wasn't hungry, but I fixed myself a drink and decided to take my lawyer's advice.

I retrieved the third letter left by my parents from the cabinet, where it had stayed since the day he dropped it off.

Carefully, I tore open one in, even folded.

I could see through the thin parchment that the message was brief, but it was undeniably written in my mother's handwriting.

It said, I fear they are no longer the ones we loved.

Burn it down.

Burn it all down.

That's good.

Okay.

I really like this story because, like I said earlier, it doesn't play around the vampire concept.

It dives into it.

And it, the way they build mystery isn't on are they vampires or anything.

It's everything else, like the secret crawl space under the floor.

What are the seven mounds in the ancient writing?

What was the ants' connection?

Why did she decide to burn everything down?

Is it because the family turned on them now?

Has all this been caused because our main character decided to sell the hotel?

The The guy who showed up last night, was he the seller or was he like a vampire hunter, a Van Helsing, like you said?

It doesn't ask questions around the nature of what they are because we know what they are.

It asks questions around the greater story that it uses them as a set piece of, which is really cool.

It keeps it engaging.

Well, I think that's, this is just a classic example of

the thing that is making the story interesting is not the idea that it's vampires.

Vampires are just the, like, it's just the exciting, like syrupy cherry on top.

You know, it's like the chocolate sauce and the cherry on top of the sundae.

But like the actual meat of the story that is engaging is this family's mystery.

Like very interesting characters are our main character kind of stumbling and finding into like new things about this family and then having to unravel all these like secrets that they had no idea about.

That's like where, that's what makes it engaging.

And then it's just a, it's just a huge bonus that there's a fucking naked man standing in the corner covered in blood.

you know, that kind of thing.

That's just the thing that makes it exciting.

But I think, like, the character building itself, that's what's making this so compelling.

And I think that's also just a good example of like why the story works so well.

And, like, just for any people who are maybe wanting to write their own stuff, characters are always the most important thing.

Yeah.

The ideas of that.

Like, the vampire shit, who gives a fuck?

Like, really?

Like, it's just like you can go any direction with it, and it wouldn't matter if your characters suck.

You know what I mean?

I mean, they're a tool, and they can be used effectively or ineffectively.

And they're used effectively here, but it's because they're not...

The story is not about the fact that they are vampires.

It is about a character that so happens to be here with vampires.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The dressing, the set dressing of your story is vampires, but the foundation of story is the mystery.

And it's like this is being the fun of being able to unravel.

these mysteries with your character that is uh just becoming more and more fun as it goes on on.

Like I really, really also, I just want to say too, because we didn't say anything at that break, but I was really kind of sucked into the story at that moment.

But imagine walking in, you just see the pale eyes in the corner and the guy's just naked, like emaciated and naked.

That's pretty fucking horrifying.

Covered in blood.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, it gets some good like that.

I was a little creeped out when she's in the crawl space and there's like riding and the mounds.

It's like what's down there?

What have they buried?

That's good.

That's good.

Like visual horror.

I like it.

And there's a lot of questions.

Like, what's with the Chicago thing?

Is she someone else's kid that the vampires brought here?

Like,

she can't be a vampire because she's aging, but how connected does this go?

Like, again, it has mysteries and they're ones that I care about, not ones that are.

In the first part, I had a little bit of worry where a main character kind of took a while to figure out what they were.

But the worry's immediately been put to the side with how much, how many good questions there are coming up.

So I'm bought in.

I'm loving it so far.

I'm thinking it's some kind of family in a city who met a vampire who got fucked up.

I know before I was like, oh, maybe they're vampire hunters.

I think it just might have been people who got in bed with a vampire at one point.

And it seems like from the deal of you used to live in a very civilized, you know, suburban setting and now you're in the middle of nowhere.

Definitely seems like they're hiding.

From the rest of the world up in the mountains versus being in a space where they're maybe constantly tempted who knows could be

um okay so part three before we get into part three i realize that y'all can see it yes i am wearing a my little pony shirt but it's ironic sure little

pew pew after the uh cupcakes episode so many of you messaged uh a gun company called polidar tactical who had uh My Little Pony merch that said My Little Pew Pew that they

messaged me and were like, Hey, so a bunch of our fans or a bunch of people have said that you would really like this My Little Pony short shirt.

So I had to go into this long diatribe.

It's not because I'm a brony, it's because my fans think it's funny.

People that watch Creepcast, it's this podcast where I read scary stories, and they didn't believe anything I said, but they sent me the shirt anyway.

So thank you for that.

So thank you guys for doing that, I guess.

Whatever.

I also had a

funny kind of habit recently too.

Basically, this like,

how would you say this bank?

Like a treasury of some sort, give me a bunch of money because of the IP for penis toes.

And the fans kind of contacted them about that.

And they were like, we just want to give you a bunch of money because of it.

Part three.

Part three.

Burn it all down.

Those words run clear in my head as if my mother were whispering them in my ear.

Trust me, I wanted nothing more than to be done with this motel and the family, but there were some things I just couldn't let go.

I started to worry that if I sold the motel, other secrets would be revealed.

Dark secrets, damaging secrets.

I could fill in that pit below their room, but what else was hiding in the motel grounds?

I had no choice but to wait for the sale to either go through or fail.

In the meantime, I packed up what I could from our old family home.

Every photograph of my parents now felt different, less genuine.

do you think that the uh

do you think that like

less genuine do you think that the main characters starting to question

like you know what i mean like do you think that he's do you think that she is basically being like like was my family of fucking monsters like is she starting to be like my family might be

uh corrupt i don't think her family were vampires but i think i think she is questioning like why they hid so much and also

were they like is this even her family like was the people in chicago her actual parents or something i mean she doesn't know there's so many there's so there are so many mysteries that are strung out in front of her she doesn't have answers to yeah why would they keep so much from me i asked out loud to a room of family artifacts and meaningless mementos nobody answered Two days passed and I waited for either the boy or the man in the truck to return.

Instead, the first car to pull into the parking lot was that of my local sheriff.

My body tensed and my mind went to the room and and the blood-soaked carpet that I never replaced.

I questioned whether or not I'd actually be honest if he asked about it.

Yes, of course I would be.

I had nothing to hide.

I knew nothing.

Nothing except for the fact that I'd rented rooms to soulless immortal creatures that somehow acquired gallons upon gallons of blood without notice.

I began to doubt my own composure.

I waited at the door to the office while he sat in the cruiser for 10 minutes or so.

I wasn't sure if he saw me or not, but regardless, I held my ground.

I noticed a little too late.

My cleaning supplies abandoned in the lobby next to gallons of bleach.

The cruiser door slammed shut and snapped my attention back to him.

As he approached, he scanned the surroundings, taking note of the unlit vacancy sign, turned back and registered the curtainless windows of each emptied room.

This is, of course, except for the families.

Afternoon.

He said with the tip of his hat.

What can I do you for?

He removed the shades and peeked over my my shoulder into the lobby.

Wondering if I could have a moment of your time to ask you some questions.

Regarding,

well,

he turned back to the mostly emptied rooms.

You have any guests recently?

Closed down a few weeks back, unfortunately.

That's not what I asked.

He said, smiling again, but this time with menace.

Sorry?

I don't mean to be rude or nothing, but we know Bill Henley was on his way up here a few days back.

Just wondering if he made it

sorry i don't know him you don't know the man who was fixing on buying your place he asked again looking back at the family's room oh him yeah

him

i uh my lawyer handled it all i didn't meet him not even when he stopped here for the night he asked showing his cards i swallowed hard i wanted to tell the truth but i wasn't ready for what came with it oh did he drive a truck

he did then yes i I saw it.

Parked over there.

I said, foolishly pointing towards the room.

Sheriff turned to the room, to the parking spot, to my secrets, took out a notepad and began to write something down.

But he didn't stay with us.

We were closed, so he slept in his car, I think.

Thank?

Yes, looking back at me.

I didn't see him leave, but yeah, he was here for a little bit.

You know, the truck belonged to him and all.

It did.

He said, putting the notebook away.

Mind if I take a look around?

Of course not.

I said, the words tumbling out of my mouth before my mind could stop them.

Stepped aside to sort of lead him into the lobby, away from the family's room.

Immediately, he took notice of the cleaning supplies and the bleach.

Is there a problem?

Is he okay?

She is being the most suspicious person ever.

No, shit.

Oh, him?

No, I don't know him.

Oh, that guy.

He was here, actually.

He was right over there.

You can look around.

Is he okay?

Is he alive?

He didn't die, did he?

Did he get bit on his neck?

Did he get bit on his neck?

Did you find him drained of blood?

Like the blood in that room over there?

Don't look in there, by the way.

Yeah, there's definitely not a giant cavern with old Eldrick text written in Elvish on the walls.

Just don't look in there.

It's nothing.

Any horrors that are in that room are certainly comprehensible, so you shouldn't even try to comprehend them.

The sheriff's gaze lingered on the bleach for a very long time.

He then turned his attention back to me.

I could see his mind working over something.

Thinking.

Suddenly, it felt as if the air in the room shifted.

His entire demeanor changed, and I felt an aura of warmth from him.

He shrugged and cracked a smile.

Well, I figured it's going to be on the news soon anyway.

If it ain't already, what?

Well, nothing good, that's for sure.

The truck you saw, they found it about 200 or so miles west of here.

Off the 80?

All the way up there.

What was he doing?

Well, we don't know.

We don't know where he was.

We don't know who he is.

Or no, we don't know where he is.

We don't know who he is.

We don't know what's going on.

I was like, what the fuck?

Well, we don't know.

Well, we don't know.

The sheriff has intense memory loss.

Who are you?

Who am I?

What are we doing here?

Well, we don't know.

We don't know where he is.

He said his gauge drifting out to the knickknacks of photographs.

Oh, that's not good.

I don't like that.

You really ain't gonna like the next pod.

The buyer of yours has a lot to answer for.

Like what?

Well, the body that found in the cab, burnt to a crisp, abandoned.

I don't like that.

This guy, the man that was outside of my hotel, that I was the last one to see him alive, who's super suspicious, and his truck was found 200 miles miles away.

Don't like that.

It's funny.

He said, picking up a photograph of myself and my parents.

I thought you said he was missing.

You sure it wasn't him?

I asked, trying to find something to do with my fidgeting hands.

Too young, too small to be him.

Best we can reckon it's a young man they found.

But no ID, though.

John Doe.

He said, looking hard at the photo.

These your parents?

I nodded.

He looked back at the photo, then back back at me biological i'm told i look more like my grandparents really

smiled and returned the photo i believe he then looked for photos of my grandparents but there were none okay so she's off of that she's clearly adopted the uh

the

was that the vampire team that was in the room do you think that he was

yes okay yeah it brought out into sunlight yeah yeah yeah definitely so i had the thought with the cigarettes uh that maybe earlier with the ash, I'm like, maybe that's like dead vampires or something like burnt to ash.

But then they said

that there were actual cigarette butts being smoked, so you're probably right.

That was just to mask the smell, um,

or they're just Russia and they love chain smoking, yeah, they do love chain smoking, that's right.

Um,

but so I thought that what was implying with the extra blood and stuff was that he had been killed, the vampire hunter, uh, which maybe, maybe he has,

And the boy

stole his truck and started trying to drive away, trying to find the family.

And then when daylight hit, he burnt to ash.

Wait, what direction did they say he was driving?

West?

Yeah,

I think

the guy's still alive.

I think the vampire hunter dude that slept in the car.

I feel like we're going to get more from him.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, well, it said he was driving west, right?

So that would have been driving away from the sunrise.

So perhaps the boy stole the, I mean, maybe the vampire hunter is still alive, but perhaps the boy stole the car and then started driving west, trying to find the family, trying to get away.

And then when sunrise hit, burned him to ash in the cab.

That'll explain why he's not around.

Because if he is a vampire hunter and he kidnapped the boy, why would he drive 200 miles away and then abandon his car and leave him in the cab?

He would probably do it in a more, you know, he's done this before.

He would cover his tracks better.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, we, from what we know, who knows?

Who knows?

Yeah.

If that's my bear trap, I'm setting.

If it's the boy drove the car and started driving west to get away from the sunrise, if that turns out to be right, I'm going to hee-haw about how cool I am for calling it, but could also be wrong.

We stood there trapped in a long, awkward silence.

I motioned towards the kitchen door behind the front desk.

Does he still want to look around?

I asked, trying to lead him.

Nah, maybe later.

Just needed to confirm he was here, really.

He said, making his way back outside.

I followed.

Okay, well, thank you for stopping by.

He paused at the door, acknowledging my awkward statement.

Then I saw it again, his mind working.

Put his sunglasses back on.

He was alone here, you said.

I thought hard.

What did I tell him?

Did I slip?

Couldn't remember.

I don't know.

She is awful at this.

He looked at me as if he could tell I was lying.

Could have been someone else in the truck.

It was dark.

Can't say for sure.

He nodded in acceptance.

Thank you for your time.

With that, he was gone.

But as he drove by, the only remaining curtains still hanging in the motel rooms made a point to slow and look as he passed.

I waited until he's going to go back to the station and be like, all right, well, whatever happened, that girl's in on it.

Yeah, we have a murderer around the hotel.

We gotta get rid of her.

I waited until he was out of sight and then ran back home as fast as I could.

As soon as I I reached the bathroom I vomited.

My nerves were a tangle of anxiety and guilt.

I knew that the body they found had to belong to the teenage boy, but what about the man?

He was either still alive or

still here.

I searched the motel grounds for any sign of the man, or other secret spots.

I wandered past the property line into the clearing, and with the sunlight beating down on me, I had an epiphany.

Teenage boy was on his way to another place like ours.

Sanctuary.

He would never have let himself himself get caught outside like that.

Not on purpose, in all my years of knowing the family.

I had never seen them at any time close to dawn or dusk.

They were experts at avoiding the sun.

Wherever he was going, he couldn't have been far from his destination.

I knew what I had to do.

I had to find their next stop.

I had to know if it was anything like the motel, and if it was, how?

Why?

Could there be more of those earthen rooms cluttered with crystals and soft dirt covered in strangely written runes?

I had to know.

I packed what I could into my small car and locked up the motel.

Before I left, I made sure to reload my grandfather's gun and place it in my bag, which I then placed on the passenger seat.

I wasn't sure what I was looking for, but I was fairly certain that if I found anything, I had to be ready.

The drive was long, but I drove slowly.

Kept an eye out for any building or structure that could hide them.

Luckily, the highway was an extension of the one that the motel sat on.

It was another dead road.

A long stretch of nothing.

So spotting anything would be easy.

As I passed the 200 mile marker, I slowed to a crawl and leaned over my steering wheel.

An old barn crept into view around the 220 mark, and I knew it had to be there.

It was the only building within miles.

I pulled into the old dirt road alongside deep tire tracks left, and the rain softened it into mud.

I stepped out of the car and pocketed the revolver.

The sky overhead was gray, made for a dark afternoon.

I followed the tracks as they led into the old rotted barn.

Heavy doors were in despair, but the hinges swung as if they were new.

Inside the barn was what you would expect from an antique structure.

Old brittle hay and rusted equipment were left and forgotten.

Everything looked as if it hadn't been touched in decades.

Everything except for a strange metal watering trough in the center of the barn.

A sickening realization of what it was had set in before I saw the familiar dark rings around the inside.

Like the bath in their room, this had been filled with blood.

The ground surrounding the trough was stained from decades of crimson icer seeping into it.

As I stepped close, the ground bowed beneath my feet and the wood groaned.

I stomped.

The hollow echo of an empty chamber could be heard below.

I kicked aside the dust and hay to reveal the trapdoor.

There was less effort put into hiding this one, but then again the location itself was a hiding spot.

Found the finger holes and pulled up the door.

That familiar scent of smoke, stale breath, and iron wafted up.

I pulled a revolver from my pocket and climbed down.

The room was smaller than the one below the motel, but it was very much the same.

Odd words were again carved into the walls, but wood replaced brick in this more ramshackle construction.

The strange crystalline rocks were placed around the room in a pattern I hadn't noticed beneath the motel.

There were fewer here, but enough to catch my eye.

I pulled one out of the dirt and held it in my hand.

Soft dusted salt seemed to rub off with the slightest touch.

It was heavy in my hand, more than you would expect.

I held it into the light from my phone.

There were dark red and blue mineral veins streaking through the otherwise milky white crystal.

It was so dry, it felt as if it sucked the moisture from my fingertips.

I pocketed it and continued on into the darkness.

My foot sunk into an exceptionally soft patch of dirt.

I realized I was standing on one of the earthen mounds, same as the seven in the motel chamber.

One, however, was unlike the rest.

The dirt was discolored and more dry than the other mounds.

There was also a fleck of white protruding just beneath the gray, unfertile soil.

Hunched over, I made my way to the dying mound and uncovered a note written on a white piece of paper.

A white piece of paper that just so happened to be stationary from our motel.

It read: Father, if you have found your way here, I am sorry.

We waited for three days, but the fire burned so hot.

The master said you could not return.

I begged her to wait, but the soil grew damp and we had to move on.

If you've made it here, you know about the orphan.

Our oldest home is in danger.

In my slumber, I still feel your presence, so I have hope you will find us soon.

Hopefully so, as we have left you a meal in the old farmhouse far from the road.

I hope that gives you the strength to find us again.

Matthew.

I left the note where it laid.

So, the father then is the teenage boy, I'm guessing.

I think it's the father of one of the other people.

I think that

the oldest person there is probably not related to any of them, is what I'm thinking.

You know what I mean?

It's like the head vampire.

It's the master or whatever.

Yeah, but the teenage boy was the one separated from the group, right?

Yeah, but I thought that there was younger.

I thought there was younger ones than that.

No?

I mean, his little sister is younger, but.

Oh, that's that's the only one I thought.

There's a teenage boy and the teenage girl.

The twist kind of may be the teenage boy and the teenage girl the oldest of them.

They could be.

Yeah.

Because they're saying, like, hopefully, father, you're separated.

Hopefully, this old meal will get you here.

So that was probably what the teenage boy was looking for, why he started driving to get to this next safe house.

But he didn't make it before sunrise, it sounds like.

what was that they said that there was dust dusted salt seemed to rub off so i feel like salts normally used to keep away vampires why would there be salt down here i didn't know if it was something where it's like salting the earth or something like did they because i know what you mean like it's supposed to be like a protection circle or something yeah yeah i think it's well one There could be a couple things.

It could be a compromise.

Like, did the guy get there and he made us a protection circle?

Yeah.

Or something?

Or are they doing something where they're, I don't know,

drying out the fucking farm for some reason?

Or who knows?

Yeah,

the soil needs to be wet for some reason.

There's also something about the minerals, how there's red and blue mineral veins through the white crystals, and that means something.

And they're super dry.

She said it was so dry, it felt as if it sucked the moisture from my fingertips.

Maybe they're salt crystals and that has some significance.

I don't know.

the only good thing it was like preservation or something like people will pack something with salt i mean i don't know yeah could be preserving meat or something in that farm you know what i mean yeah could be that the farmhouse in question was far from the barn but i was worried that driving up might bring unwanted attention i walked through waist-high grass on the unstilled soil of dead farmland this plot of land had been long forgotten The house itself was in better condition than the farm, but not by much.

It had been lived in recently, but how recent I couldn't be sure.

It was far from the highway and isolated in a way only rural homes can be.

I approached from the side of the home and peered through the dust covered windows.

The decor had a timeless, untethered look, and it was unclear if it had been abandoned for years or if the residence had just had peculiar taste.

Regardless, I saw no signs of movement inside.

I thought about entering through the window, but caught myself and did the rational thing.

I knocked on the front door.

I thought I heard a brief flurry of restrained movement somewhere inside the house.

My hand went immediately to the revolver.

My voice was knotted and stuck in my throat.

I swallowed hard to try to call out, but my nerves wouldn't allow it.

Instead, I reached out for the doorknob, and the moment my fingers made contact, the door drifted open.

It felt as if I were being invited inside.

Okay, so that.

Hmm.

Hmm.

I won't make any weird predictions yet, but that feels strangely vampiric, which I don't know.

Our author couldn't be.

They're aging.

They have no knowledge of this, but like, I thought about going through the window.

I didn't go through the window.

Instead, I decided to...

It felt like I was being invited inside.

Anyway, my shoes slipped slightly on an old pile of mail stacked up from years of neglect.

Some were postmarked from as far back as the late 90s.

My first instinct about the decor was correct.

Thick layers of dust seemed to coat most things in the home, but certain spots had been wiped clean with use.

A path in the hallway rug was worn down from recent footsteps.

I followed them to the kitchen.

There were dishes in the sink and a box of discontinued cereal on the counter next to an empty jug of milk.

The power had long ago been shut off and the contents of the fridge had rotted past the state of decay and no longer even smelled.

The ashtray on the kitchen table, however, was packed full of fresh butts.

A single unsmoked cigarette was left next to a matchbook.

One thing became obvious.

The meal was not left in the kitchen.

Hello?

I called out, adjusting my grip on the revolver.

A metallic rattle and a pained moan came from somewhere in another room.

I stepped carefully in the direction of the ghostly noise.

I could hear a subtle rhythmic tapping coming from behind the door of a room at the end of the hallway.

The distance to that door felt longer than the distance from the house to the barn.

Long, drawn-out moans seemed to seep out from beneath the cracks in the door.

I removed the gun from my jacket pocket and with my other hand I carefully opened the door.

Foolish noise ceased in the moments that the door opened, replaced by the squeak of unused hinges.

I stepped back and aimed.

It was just a bathroom.

Soft blue and pepto-pink tiles were not the horror I expected on the other side of the door.

The pipes beneath the sink let out another ghostly moan as they groaned from unuse and the steady drip of a leaky faucet pattered behind the shower curtain.

I understand now that it was not the brightest idea, but I had driven for hours and I had no other options, none that would provide the comfort of a seat.

So I placed the gun to the sink and sat down.

Wait, hold on.

I

she like she sat the gun on the sink or she's pointing the gun at the sink.

She sat the gun, or she had like put the gun on the sink and I think sat on the toilet or something.

Okay.

I only had a moment of relief before I saw the silhouette behind the semi-opaque shower curtain.

Oh shit.

I pushed on the curtain thinking it was just a trick of the light but my hand made contact with something solid.

Before I could stand the silhouette formed into the figure of a person as it reached out towards me.

I stood quickly but a withered white hand covered in blood emerged from the shower.

I tripped and grasped for anything to catch myself.

I grabbed hold of the only thing standing between myself and the figure, the shower curtain.

As I fell back, the curtain tore from the rings and fell onto me.

Frantically, I crawled backwards out from under the curtain and out of the room, away from the gun.

I pulled my pants up and struggled to my feet, realizing that the thing standing in front of me was not pursuing me.

Instead, the emaciated figure of a dead man hung suspended above the tub, swaying slightly from my push.

The room began to spin as the horror of what was in front of me became clear with the sound of every wet drop of blood dripping into the bath.

It was the meal.

I grabbed the gun and before i knew it i was already outside i considered my options i thought about burning it down but there's a guy hanging up in there you guys are gonna burn it down

i thought about burning it down but that would only bring attention i knew nothing about fingerprints and fire and evidence the safest option was to do nothing oh my gosh

Call you can call 911 and just drive away.

You don't have to be there when the police show up.

This house had remained hidden for so long.

Why wouldn't it stay that way?

Just to be safe, though, I took the shower curtain and wiped down any surface I remember touching.

I locked the door from the inside and closed it.

What?

There's a guy bleeding to death in the shower upstairs.

She is now complicit in the death of this man.

Oh, yes.

After a conversation with the sheriff, where it's like, I don't know.

What do you mean?

I haven't seen him.

What are you talking about?

The walk back to the barn was long and arduous.

I replayed the images in my mind over and over and thought back to the bathtub I had cleaned so many times before.

If there were any doubt in my mind before, it had been erased.

The family that I had known my whole life were no longer human.

They truly were creatures of the night that preyed on the weak and drank their blood.

Should have been obvious.

Maybe it was.

Maybe my parents knew all along.

They had to.

But me, I'd only coalesced in my mind after seeing the body.

It became clear as day.

Every four years, for a week at a time, I had been in the presence of an unearthly evil.

They were inhuman, unnatural, and otherworldly.

They were vampires.

We were just one stop on their tour of death.

They must have other places like ours, just close enough to make it in a night drive.

My aunt lived only a few hours east of us.

My memories of visiting her came flooding back.

It now made sense that every time I stepped into the guest house beneath her home, the cellar door would smell of smoke, stale breath, iron, and every once in a while, soft lavender too.

It seems now that my aunt did what my parents couldn't.

That is probably why they left her that last letter.

They knew that she would be capable of doing what they never could.

They had made the deal and tolerated slaughter under their roof.

But part of me understood why.

Even if they wanted to burn it all down, she was still their little girl, girl and she needed a safe place.

As I stood in front of the burn pit out back behind the motel, I watched the plastic shower curtain.

She's now just a part of the burn.

You could have helped that guy.

As I stood in front of the burn pit out back behind the motel, I watched the plastic shower curtain curl and melt in the flames.

A flicker of light off glass caught my eye just outside the center of the fire.

I used a stick to dig it out.

Glasses.

Thick-rimmed glasses.

He He was never coming back.

Bill Henley.

The man.

Wait.

The guy in the shower curtain was Bill?

Yep.

Or the guy in the show.

So not only, not only are you killing an innocent man, it was a guy who knew about the vampires and you could have helped.

He was never coming back.

Bill Henley, the man who was going to purchase my motel, was not coming back.

Like it or not, this motel was still mine.

And as far as I knew, I still had four years to figure out what to do with it.

So Isaiah, is every one of these, is every one of these posts, is it four years in between each post?

Uh,

no, because the first one ends with them showing up again, right?

That's what I thought.

Well, that's what I thought, but I'm like, if they're showing up again, that would have been okay.

So this is the first four.

It's like, oh, so it's been four years.

This is the first time they've been there.

And now this is just the days preceding after like they stayed there, they left.

And this is just like the kind of interactions that are happening within the couple days after they left

no because part four the next part opens with right after she burnt the stuff yeah

so it's like

i mean it may so i guess what i'm saying four years later but i guess what i'm saying is it has like since we've known the character be an adult the people have died the first time that she's there it had been the four years whatever but it there has been no other it's not like the passage of time between these parts has not been over four years since the character has become an adult or whatever.

It's just been

yet.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah.

They've been pretty back-to-back otherwise.

All right.

Part four.

Part four.

Over the next few days, I was little more than a ghost haunting the motel grounds.

I drifted from room to room trying to cobble together a purpose.

I quickly realized that I was bound to this property and whether it was an ancient family curse or a legal contract, I was supposed to stay here and maintain the property.

I felt obligated to protect my sister, even if she barely resembled the little girl I remembered.

My mother, for all her faults, had done what she could to protect her daughter.

Working over the events in my mind and recounting the visits of the family, I had come to the conclusion that my parents had made a deal to save my sister.

I remember her illness, I remember her withering away before my eyes.

She was going to die, it was a fact, but somehow she didn't.

She continued living as an eternal child, cursed to walk in ever-evolving Earth as she herself was frozen in prepubescence.

They had changed her, and I was determined to figure out how.

I looked for clues in my father's old lockbox, but found little more than unfamiliar photos and documents that no longer had any relevance.

One thing that stood out, though, was an early memento that my grandfather had kept.

It was the first brochure for the cave system.

If not for the scribbled red circle on the map, it may have been worth something.

I spent an entire day.

Okay, I'm sure they're going to come back to the cave map, but it's funny to be like, amidst everything, I found a map of a cave with the X marks the spot on it.

I decided that probably was useless, so I kept looking for other things.

There was a giant X with a crossbone and a giant ship.

It's like just basically just doing the goonies.

It's like, yep.

Nine 12-year-olds just ran by with their disfigured, six-foot-tall friend.

I'm sure that's totally normal.

I'm sure that's fine.

What's this?

There's a note on the back that says, this circle will lead to the secrets to stopping the vampires.

Yeah.

That probably means nothing.

He probably was just saying that.

Unrelated.

On the door to the front of the business, there is a post note that read, goonies never die.

And then, oh, what's this on the other side of the brochure?

You may encounter the goonies, but more importantly, this is the secret to stopping the vampires.

and saving your sister.

I doubt it.

I don't like that.

I'm going to do

anything else now.

I'm going to go.

Let's do other things.

I'm going to go clean blood instead.

Maybe if I look at these heaps long enough, that'll give me a clue.

I spend an entire day sifting through the dirt in the space below their room.

Oh my god, I was right.

Literally, I'm going to go look at the heaps of dirt and that'll, I'll figure that out.

The soft earth that filled their mounds was starting to change.

With the exception exception of what I assume was the teenage boys, the dark earthen mounds were starting to dry and crumble.

The boy spot was still dark with a fresh dampness about it, though it grew more dry and brittle with every passing day.

The salty crystalline rocks placed near each mound seemed to draw out whatever moisture was in the dirt, drying it into a dead, useless dust.

The crystals themselves were not unique, nor rare by any means.

They were the same ones that lined the ceiling and floors in the deepest chambers of the caverns.

I remembered them from my childhood visits.

I felt a strange longing to return there.

I needed to uncover its secrets.

Yeah, kind of like how your grandfather left

the cave.

But not that.

But not that.

Not the pirate ship or the current.

But not that.

I don't like that.

I don't like that secret.

I'm going to find other ones.

I don't want to be there.

Well,

we got to remember this is a woman that is now complicit in the murder of Bill.

Just left him.

Bill was going to die anyways.

She made the good call.

She saw him behind the curtain and was like, I don't like this.

I don't like you.

And I don't like that I need to do something about this.

So bye-bye.

Give me the shower curtain to watch my brain.

You're going to die, Bill.

You're going to die.

You're dead.

You're dead.

I decided you're dead, Bill.

Goodbye, Bill.

I don't like this.

I don't like that I need to do this.

I needed to uncover its secrets.

While they had been closed for almost a year now, there was still a park ranger named Graham who remained on the premises.

He would sometimes stop by for some of our old free lobby coffee, always overpaying.

He joked that we were the only coffee shop in town, which was partially true.

I hadn't seen him in a few months, but his truck would pass regularly as he would survey the outlying grounds.

I could tell he was bored, and I thought that I could manipulate that into an eagerness to help me.

I called ahead, but the line went straight through to an automated recording, an apology to potential visitors about the indefinite closure.

With little else to do, I made some coffee and filled a thermos for him.

I drove down to the closed lot and parked just outside the locked fence.

I could see his truck parked inside, so I knew he was there.

He saw me arriving on the security camera, so he was already greeting me with a wave as I crossed the closed parking lot.

Afternoon, Graham.

What brings you down here?

Research?

When was the last time you made it here?

Years.

My folks were still around.

Ah, there's a lot to see.

The remodel finished right before the shutdown, and I've been dying to show somebody around.

So I'm glad you're here.

I gave him the coffee and his eyes went wide.

He stopped coming by after I closed up shop so I could tell he was grateful to have one last cup.

We walked into the dimly lit lobby, potent with the smell of new carpet and fresh paint.

Wait here while I go turn everything on, he said, clearly excited.

I stood in the darkness for almost a minute before the lights came on with the quiet hum of electric life.

The lobby was filled with media displays of the cavern's history.

There were photos and stories of opening day with updates for each anniversary.

As I waited for Graham to return, I studied the older photos behind the glass case nearest to me.

Suddenly, the hairs on my neck stood straight.

I swore I could feel someone watching me.

It was only then that I noticed his gaze staring back from one particularly old photograph.

In it, a familiar figure stood at the center of a group of visitors looking back at me.

It was the old man from the family.

It was as if he were somehow staring at me through the photo.

His eyes locked on the lens of the camera and then turned on me.

It was hard to discern his age in that old faded photo, but he looked very much the same as he did today.

The only difference was that instead of his usual gray suit, he was wearing a park ranger uniform.

Ah, you've met Jerry?

Jerry?

I mean, we don't actually know his name, but...

We all call him Jerry.

He was one of the first rangers to work the park.

Him and his colleagues were responsible for a lot of the early mapping of the cave system.

This photo and a bunch of other stuff was found locked in an old utility closet.

Didn't even know it existed because that particular cave was closed off.

Check it out.

He said, leading me over to the millestrated map covering the entire wall.

He pointed to a blank spot on the map.

Found it right there, actually.

I brought my grandfather's old brochure, so I pulled it out to compare to the current map.

The blank tunnel he was pointing to still existed on my grandfather's map.

Yeah, they left out a few of the trickier spots on the new maps.

They didn't want to entice explorers into places they maybe couldn't have made it out of.

May not get out of?

Yeah, steep inclines, drop-offs, or just plain tight squeezes.

They left those spots off and the map you see today is just the safest, what we call, I mean, vanilla trails.

I showed him the red circle at the end of a pathway that they decided to omit in the modern map.

Any idea why that's circled?

Looks like the gulch, or at least whatever's past it.

What's past it, and what is the gulch?

Not much to tell.

It's one of the steepest descents and is almost impassable without gear or a ladder, which is a shame, really.

I hear it's the most beautiful places in the system.

It's got a unique vein stalagomites.

Like this?

I said, pulling the crystalline rock from my pocket.

You're showing me a federal offense.

I hope you know that.

What?

You are literally showing me plundered goods.

Where'd you even get it?

My grandfather's collection.

They were a little more willy-nilly with the rules back then.

Everybody was taking tokens and souvenirs, and before the Tucker boy, they kind of let people just roam around.

He said, pointing at a photo of a well-dressed folks climbing a dangerous rock formation.

What happened to the Tucker boy?

No clue.

That was the problem.

They looked for him for a few weeks.

He was visiting with his wife and son and went missing.

Well, right around the Gulch, actually.

Which is why it's not on the map.

He said with another educational chuckle.

I thought you said he was a boy.

Eighteen.

But he was married with a son.

Times were different back then.

Graham walked over to another glass case away from the main display.

They've talked about taking this down for renovation.

I mean, it is a little dark.

He said, pointing at a display of old missing persons photos spanning the decades of the park's operations.

I had no idea.

That's him right there, Mr.

Tucker himself.

He said, pointing at a class photo of a face I knew all too well.

The teenage boy from the family stared back, younger and happier.

Yeah, so teenage boy becomes the first vampire.

He had a young kid.

He goes back and finds his son years later after his son's now older than he was when he went missing, turns him into a vampire.

So the man in the family's father is physically younger than himself.

Yeah,

I was transfic.

I believe that's right, ma'am.

Yes, I do believe that's where the vampiric abominations come from, from the gulch itself.

But whatever your grandfather circled on that map, I don't like it.

You shouldn't do that.

You should go over there.

Goonies never die.

Once again, a little confused why the goonies keep coming up in my grandfather's treasure map references, but I don't like it anyway.

So I'm not.

I want to go.

You should find a pirate boat.

Once again, I think this is a story about vampires.

I don't think that really applies to what we're doing here, but I don't like it.

I was transfixed, but Graham was already moving on.

Listen, I got nothing on the docket today, so if you want, I can take you close to the gulch.

I just gotta get some lights.

He said, already on his way to get the back room.

As I waited for his return, I made my way to the elevators that would bring us down into the caverns.

The gift shop was located just across from them, so it would be the first thing visitors would see when they resurfaced.

Cheesy t-shirts, postcards, and other junk were crammed into the small space.

The entire shop seemed to be designed to frame a bookshelf filled entirely with copies of a history book about the caverns.

Curious, I opened the book and flipped through the first few pages.

It was as if the old man were haunting me through time itself.

Again, his blank stare caught my eyes immediately.

Looking out from a full-page photograph of a staff photo inside the largest chamber of the caverns, it was labeled as October 23rd, 1924, one year after opening day.

Even in his friendly Park Ranger uniform, his presence was so chilling that I almost missed her.

The Park Service began with Teddy Roosevelt, right?

I believe so.

Which was, yeah, it would have been around 20s.

That's the right time period.

Yeah, 20s.

Late 1910s, 20s.

Yeah, it's correct.

And also the 20s were when everyone got cave fever.

People would find caves on their property and charge money to go into it, and like people would just die with

shit stuck in there somewhere.

And it'd be like, well, we probably shouldn't do that again.

Holding the hand of the old man was the teenage girl.

She looked very much the same, but thinner, more gaunt.

My attention was suddenly stolen by the cluttered clank of Graham approaching with his gear.

Did he have a daughter?

I asked, pointing at the photo of the old man.

Graham leaned over to give a half-involved glance.

Like I said, we don't know his real name.

He then walked over and hit the button for the elevator.

His excitement was doing nothing to soften my growing anxiety over the photographs.

The ride down took longer than I remembered, and my ears popped from the pressure change as we descended deep underground.

As soon as the elevator doors opened into the first chamber, Graham disappeared into the darkness.

Wait here.

You never see Graham again or shit.

Just a boy.

Well, I guess I'll...

I don't like that, so I'm going to leave now.

No, it would be in her character for Graham to come back bloodied, like, please help.

And she's like, shut the door.

I'm going to go up now.

I don't like this.

I followed, but stopped right outside the elevator.

The dim emergency lights casting haunting shadows across the cavern walls.

It was just enough light for Graham to navigate without his flashlight.

I could hear nothing but his footsteps in the muffled silence of the stale cavern air.

When he reached his destination, his footsteps ceased and the silence settled in.

To my right, I heard a distant flutter and what I thought was a faint screech.

A loud mechanical click signaled the lights turning on and filling even the deepest corners of the cavern with comforting light.

Graham returned and with a wave he ushered me to follow him.

All right, let's start this private tour, he said, heading right in the direction of the eerie sounds I had just heard.

There's no creaky plumbing down here, is there?

I asked, remembering the sink in the old house.

Nope.

All creaky sounds are natural cave occurrences.

He joked.

I hope.

I followed him anyway.

This isn't creaky plumbing, right?

Because I heard that in the house before I left a guy to die.

And it turns out it wasn't even the creak, it was just him moaning.

I have to go back and clean blood.

Yeah, if you die, can you not let me hear it?

Thank you.

If you die, don't worry.

I'll clean up your blood.

I wouldn't like that.

I'll clean up.

I won't be here when it happens or try to help, but I'll clean up the blood.

The walk through the main chambers and less traveled past was long and filled mostly with small talk.

Graham lamented on the fact that reopening wasn't guaranteed, despite the money they spent on the remodel.

He truly loved the caverns and couldn't see himself doing anything else.

People would die for this gig.

It's the creme de la creme of Park Service Post.

I realize how lucky I am that I do have it, he said with a tinge of real sadness.

It became obvious that we were reaching the end of the modern map because the lights started to stagger more with longer distance between each light.

Fixtures themselves were older than the rest and some were entirely out, creating breaks of darkness in the already dim cavern.

Each time we reached an old iron gate, he would search a massive key ring for the one out of the dozen keys that would open it.

Eventually, the lights no longer lit our way, and he switched on the lamps and handed handed me a helmet.

I probably should have given you this earlier, but these low ceilings make it a necessity now.

I remember it reminds me of that scene in

Ted the Caver where he just slams his head on the roof.

Oh, that sucks so bad.

Yeah.

Every time I think about low-hanging ceilings, I think about that scene.

The description of like, I feel like the pain through my body, and the light goes out, and I'm crawling, and everything hurts.

And you think about a dog just being dragged into a cave with a demon in it.

You know, it's, I made myself jump for a second because the way I have the camera angled, my deer skull is behind me and the night vision's posed in such a way that it reflects the lights from the camera, which is a cool effect.

But when I looked at my camera for a half second, it looked like it was standing behind me.

Did it like that?

Is that your impression of me screaming, me being afraid?

I just, oh God,

I do.

Okay.

I followed behind in a half-crouch as he pointed out interesting geological sites that had been hidden from the public for decades.

I noticed that some of the cave walls were starting to display the same dark red and blue mineral veins as the crystals I had collected from their chamber.

What's that?

Pointing to the rune carvings I recognized from the room below the motel.

No idea what it says.

Old-timey graffiti, I guess.

He's the park guy, and he's like, I don't know, something that the Mayans made up.

I don't

fucking know.

God damn.

Look at this stalactite.

As the ceilings and walls seemed to close in around us with each step, warm air seemed thicker as well.

I felt as though it was getting difficult to breathe and my back was stretching to ache from the unnatural posture.

Graham must have sensed my discomfort.

It opens up a little bit further ahead.

We're almost there.

He was right.

And as soon as we reached the next chamber, the air seemed to grow colder as well.

Floor that had until now been paved with a gripping cement had given way to the cavern's natural floor, a slippery surface that felt very much like sandstone.

I present the gulch,

he said while grabbing hold of my jacket to prevent me from passing him.

He switched on a very bright lantern and lit up the enormous room.

My breath left my lungs as I noticed why he had grabbed a hold of me.

The steep drop-off was only a few feet ahead, and it was more of a cliff than an incline.

It dropped down maybe 20 or 30 feet into a lower tunnel that led into further darkness.

How do we get down?

We don't.

Tour stops here.

If we so much as sprained an ankle, we're pretty much done for.

No cell service, nobody knows we're here, nobody will come looking for weeks.

That level of irresponsibility would cost me my job.

But his adherence to the rules went out the door when he heard the haunting sound.

A faint cry echoed out from the darkness past the gulch.

Do bats make it down this far?

I watched his mind wrestle with the possibilities as he shook his head slowly.

Then what was that?

He turned to me, his eyes wide and afraid.

He shook his head again.

As my own voice echoed down the cavernous path ahead, the sound ceased as if hearing me.

In those brief moments of silence, when we still shared a doubt that we had heard anything at all, I could feel him pull my jacket to lead me back out.

But then we heard it.

You

burned?

asked a voice from the distant darkness.

It sounded like an echo without a voice to reflect.

I could feel Graham's body tense and stiffen with the acceptance that what we heard was very real, not from our own imaginations.

I don't think that's the truth.

What have you brought to me?

Is Nose for R2 down here?

That's kind of the vibe, right?

The old man?

Okay.

I don't think it's it's the old man.

I thought you brought me.

If it's the old man, you know what?

Have fun with it.

Why not?

What

have you brought to me in my chamber of slumber?

No, no, now you're now you're ad-libbing.

That's not that's not the work of the next year.

Yes,

yes, that's not in the story.

Written on the page.

It called out, vulnerable and afraid.

Nobody should be down there.

How did you get down there?

Graham asked as if he wanted an answer for himself and not the ghostly voice below.

There was a moment where neither spoke.

It was as if both of them were working on what to say next.

Wow, what a change.

Well, look, look, what did it change in tone?

It said the voice now small and almost childlike, more vulnerable than before, but it's the same voice.

Whatever.

I'm a park ranger.

I can help you,

he said, and I realized that it was now me holding on to his jacket, trying to hold him back.

Stay where you are!

He called out to the childlike voice in the darkness.

He turned to me with a look of defeat or unwanted heroism.

We have to help.

Do we?

If there's one thing I know about her, she does not want to heat.

She does not want to.

Just let him die.

It's not a big deal.

We'll cleanse the bloodline.

Someone's down there.

I don't like that.

I don't like that they're down there.

Let's go somewhere else.

Now, she should be like, to save Graham, she should be like, hey, so I should have told you this earlier.

There's vampires.

They're very real, and I think they're in this cave.

I asked as he moved past me to an old metal utility trunk just to the right of the room.

As he struggled to find the key that opened the trunk, I peered into the darkness looking for any sign of movement.

For a moment, I thought I saw a small pale form move just beyond the edge of the shadows, but my attention was soon taken by the metal groan of the trunk opening.

Graham pulled out a rope ladder that attached to the side of the already secured trunk and dropped it below.

The ladder unraveled along the steep incline all the way to the floor.

The childlike voice said, slowly losing all emotion.

The urgency replaced with a calm sense of command.

I followed after Graham as he descended.

Why?

I followed after Graham as he descended down the ladder.

As my hands grazed the coarse, coarse, granular texture of the cavern wall, it felt as if the moisture was drawn from my skin.

With each labored step down, the cold air stung my lungs.

By the time I reached the bottom, Graham was already halfway across the gulch with the lantern held high.

Somehow, the light seemed to still stop at the edge of the shadowy darkness ahead.

How did you get down here?

He asked, walking slowly towards the darkness ahead.

I was

alone here,

said the voice, its childlike essence giving way to a frightening growl.

At the edge of the darkness, Graham stopped to adjust the lamp, doing everything he could to cast more light towards the unseen voice.

With his attention on the lamp, Graham didn't even see it coming.

He had no time to react.

A pale white figure emerged from the darkness and skittered across the cavern floor.

Grabbed Graham by the ankles and pulled him to the ground.

The lantern shattered on impact.

I stood there frozen at the bottom of the ladder, my own light only casting a few feet in front of me.

Grim!

Run!

He responded in a gurgled, gasping moan.

You want to try a gurgled, gasping moan?

What would that sound like from you?

That was good.

I like that.

So I claimed it's one-eyed Willie!

And then,

even further down the cavern, you just hear, Goonies never die!

And then you hear a fucking sloth.

You're like,

I climb faster than I think.

She's just like,

Ruth, baby, Ruth!

Holy fuck.

There is a mutated man with a Superman jacket down here.

Like, totally get me the fuck out of this cave.

Goonies never

die!

You're so committed to the bit.

It's kind of fucking horrifying if you think about it.

A bunch of 12-year-olds down there up

I bet the pirate ship's this way.

Seriously, get me the fuck out of here.

Why would Dracula be scared by them?

Because it's the fucking goonies, and they have Sloth, a seven-foot-tall, disabled man, who's just like,

Sloth likes to eat rocks!

And he's just like eating the walls around him.

They're totally closing in on me.

Please help me.

Ruth?

Baby, Ruth?

Yeah, then

imagine Nos Rach is sitting there and like he turns around.

He's like, I'm totally hiding right now.

I cannot let the groonies find me.

He turns around and there's chunk.

And he's like, has his shirt up, and he just starts doing the truffle shuffle.

Oh!

Oh my god!

What is this magic?

It's the travel shuffle.

Going to die!

I climbed faster than I thought possible.

I climbed faster than I thought possible, skipping rungs with each aching pull as my muscles worked on instinct and adrenaline.

I could hear the cold, wet patter of naked flesh hitting the cavern floor as the figure raced towards me.

When I reached the top of the ladder, I glanced back to see the figure pulling itself across the floor with an unnatural speed.

As I turned to pull the ladder up, my light cast just far enough to reach the bottom of the gulch.

A withered claw-like hand covered in bright red blood reached out and grabbed the bottom rung.

It pulled with an inhuman strength.

I braced myself and pulled back.

I could hear its other hand clawing at the sandpaper-like surface of the cavern wall, struggling to gain footing.

I looked to my right, into the open utility truck.

Sitting atop a coil of rope and other gear was a silver-coated pickaxe.

As I felt myself teetering on the edge of falling, I let go of the rope.

I grabbed the pickaxe and in one fluid motion I swung hard, severing one side of the rope ladder.

But still, it climbed.

The shriveled torso of a ghost-white child covered in Graham's blood.

It looked up from below with soulless black eyes.

There was no fear, only hunger.

From its waist hung long strips of withered flesh and mangled bone, what I assumed were once its legs.

The creature made it halfway up the ladder before I swung again, fraying the remaining side of the rope.

The creature did not slow, undeterred by my pickaxe.

My mind raced as I considered my next swing, the rope or the creature.

I wasn't sure if the next blow would cut the rope, but I was even less sure that I could kill whatever it was that was climbing.

I swung.

Rope snapped and the ladder fell below.

The creature slid back down the incline, hitting the bottom with a sickening wet thud.

I waited with bated breath as I listened for movement.

I called out hopelessly into the darkness.

Grim!

I swallowed hard and held my lantern over the edge.

As the shadows crept back, they revealed the creature below.

I expected a crumbled, broken mess from the fall, but instead, there it was staring up at me, unfazed.

Though its resemblance to a human was slight, I could see the aspects of the family and its emotionless stare and pale, waxy skin beneath wet red blood.

The naked figure was child-sized, but its limbs and features were distorted, odd and long.

Its bulbous, veiny head held two bulging black eyes with thin lips that barely restrained sharp, jagged teeth.

It looked as though it may have been human at one time, but its form form now was nothing more than a legless, emaciated ghoul with dry and withered skin.

Its few remaining strands of hair were matted down with wet blood.

Why are you down here?

They took my legs and left me to drop.

It said, with its shark-like eyes locked on mine.

Who?

I gave her the gift, but she bound on me.

I can give you the gift too, if you help me out.

How?

I will drink from you, and you will drink from me.

And when you slumber beneath this salted earth, it will leech out the very essence of death from your being.

We can live here together forever.

But each night you will follow me here,

and we will die beneath the crystalline earth.

Only the waken night revive by these salted sweals.

said, digging its claws into a patch of loose, gravelly sand.

My fingers tightened around the pickaxe.

What is stopping you from killing me once I help you?

Solitude.

Eternity is meaningless if you are alone.

What about Graham?

Can you bring him back?

He is not worthy of the gift.

You must choose it.

He is nothing more than a meal, sustenance after a famine.

But you,

I can smell the gift on you.

You know of my children.

You know what it means.

If they are your children, why are you here?

She accepted the gift, and we lived here for years, praying a new weed that wandered into our realm.

And then it arrived and stole her attention from me.

When she gave him the gift, he convinced her to leave our home.

When I refused to let her go, he took my legs and they left me down here to starve.

But as I said, death does not come easy down here.

Not for us.

If I help you, can you make me like you?

Yes.

I looked down at the silver axe in my hands.

I thought back to the silver-tipped bullets in my grandfather's box.

He must have known.

The pickaxe was here for a reason, coated in shimmering silver.

I knew what I had to do.

I tied off the coiled rope in the box and dropped it down.

The creature quickly grabbed hold and pulled itself up, one clawed hand over the other.

Climbed as its mangled lower half dangled below.

I stepped back and readied myself.

As the creature crested the incline and pulled itself onto my level, I raised the pickaxe high over my head.

Quickly, I brought it down on the creature's skull with a sickening crunch.

I let go and the blood-covered ghoul fell forward onto the ground in front of me.

Slowly, it turned its head, and the black, expressionless eyes locked on mine.

Silver slows, but cannot kill us.

It smiled, bearing its rows of sharp teeth.

As it wrapped its sickeningly long fingers around the handle of the axe, I reached into my pocket.

I pulled at the handle, trying to free the pickaxe from its head, too confused on what was in my hand.

I lurched forward with the only weapon I had left, sharp crystalline rock.

But the creature was fast and swiped at my feet with an incredible quickness, just as it did with Graham.

I fell backwards hard and hit my head on the rocks, but the helmet saved me from an almost certain concussion or worse.

I was still woozy when the creature climbed on top of me, the pickaxe still embedded in its skull.

With one arm, I fought it back, holding it by the neck.

With the other, I grabbed the crystalline rock.

With its face only inches from mine, I closed my eyes and plunged it into the creature's chest.

Almost immediately, the skin around the puncture withered and cracked as the rock leeched the life from the creature.

I pushed it off me and crawled backwards.

The creature's blank stare gave way to true horror as it looked down at the fatal piercing blow.

Confused, its hands weakly clawed at the embedded stone.

I stood up and removed the axe from its skull.

Again, I raised it high and then brought it down hard.

This time, the skull collapsed beneath the blow.

Its flesh crumbled into into cha until nothing but dust and blood set before me soaking into a sludgy mess so stabbing it with the crystal is like the kill shot yeah it seems

also all all the stuff that the vampire was saying

so the family abandoned them he seems to be the original yeah that

Blaze says, which is why

the girls also like, they're going to put me in the cave, which, if that's the case, I think the fucking creature would kill him, would kill the little girl.

Yeah, yeah, probably.

They're gonna put me back in the cave where the whole family came from, where this started from.

Also, I didn't think about it till just now, but the whole vampire thing reminded me.

So, when the boy, the teenage boy, who's actually the father, showed up at the house after she said that she was going to sell the hotel, I guess the only reason he didn't kill her instead of Bill or whatever

was because of

she ate the garlic, right?

That had to be why that detail came up.

I'm guessing so.

Because otherwise it would have just killed and ate her that night.

I think she was useless to them now.

Yeah.

Confident that I had ended this ancient evil, I pushed curdled blood and mudded flesh into the gulch below.

I then used the rope to climb back down into the gulch, unwilling to take the creature's word that Graham was gone.

Wow.

This is big character development for her.

No shit.

Just checking to see if the guy's alive.

As I stepped into the darkness, the ground squished beneath me.

I directed the light to my feet and the massive amounts of blood that surrounded them.

I found Graham only a few feet into the darkness.

His body was cold, but I could have sworn I still felt a pulse.

Blood oozed from large gashes in his throat, stomach, and arms.

Still, I had to try.

He was heavy, but I managed to drag him all the way back to the rope.

It was only then that I had the realization that there was no way I could get him out.

Not on my own.

By the time I could find help, he would surely be dead.

And if he were dead, I would have to explain why she's about to leave him again.

I swear I can feel a pulse.

Well, that'll take effort, so I don't like that I need to do something, so bye.

Have fun, Graham.

The creature that inflicted his wounds was nothing more than blood-soaked dust, which made for a poor explanation.

They would ask how I found him, what happened, and how he could have lost so much blood without a jagged rock in sight.

I stood there watching his blood slowly ooze out into the grainy sand beneath, mixing with the discolored sludge of the creature that had killed him.

She thinks about covering her tracks a lot, doesn't she?

Oh, people are dying.

It's a little suspicious.

She's goony material.

I made peace with my only viable option.

I'm sure you did.

I would leave him here and hope that by the time they found him, it would look like he

fell down climbing.

Covering the tracks seems so unnecessary for this story.

It's like, you really don't.

You could just try to help him.

I didn't want my friend to stay here forever, but just long enough to not incriminate me with defensive wounds.

I knew that he would understand.

Aren't you on the security cameras showing up?

No.

Irish assistant.

Okay.

I don't like cameras, so I don't think about them.

We both witnessed an unnatural evil, and there was no way anybody else would believe it.

Not without evidence.

I pulled my crystalline stone from the bloody muck and stuffed it back into my pocket.

After I said goodbye to Graham, it took me hours to find my way back out of the caverns.

Back in the gift shop, I cleaned myself up and did my best to remove any evidence I had visited.

I even returned the helmet to the rack after wiping away any trace of blood.

I was tired and weak by the time I stumbled outside into the night, drove home in a daze and barely remembered crawling into bed.

The days that followed were heavy with guilt and sorrow.

Graham lost his life because of my foolish actions, and even though it meant the evil down there was finally gone, I couldn't help but wish it was me instead of Graham that was still down there, rotting, waiting to be found.

On the third day after the events in the cavern, I was awoken mid-afternoon by a knocking at the office door.

I expected to open it to a weary traveler, but instead, I found myself face to face with the sheriff.

He lowered his sunglasses and cut right to the point.

Mind if I come inside?

I got questions.

I have a feeling you might know something.

Sure.

I led him inside the office and he made his way over to the check-in desk, pulled out a tablet from under his jacket, and set it down.

You're familiar with Ranger Graham Nillis.

I glanced at the coffee counter in the lobby and nodded.

You were there with him on Thursday, correct?

Yes, as if I'd already admitted to it.

I

with him.

there she is so bad at this.

She thinks about covering her tracks all the time, but she does that you said there were cameras that you walked in on.

Okay.

The sheriff turned on the tablet, and as he navigated it, he said, We have CCTV footage of showing you at the cavern's visitor center.

Oh, what?

A cavern?

Is that like a cave?

That'd be a mix-up.

Well, officer, I don't like that.

So can you get rid of it?

No, I don't.

I don't think.

I don't think I don't think I like cameras.

So, maybe you want someone else, not me?

Maybe.

Before I could even answer, the video was already playing.

I watched myself walking across the parking lot and waving to a smiling, still living Graham.

Yeah,

I brought him coffee.

Used to come in often, but it had been a while, so I stopped by.

Is he okay?

That's the second time someone's disappeared disappeared or died and she's like,

did he die?

Did something happen?

Is this the same thing?

Oh, she's kind of a horrible person, to be completely fair.

Yeah.

The sheriff cocked his head to the side, questioning me.

Just coffee.

My brain seemed to shut down, overloaded with the possibilities of what he knew, why he was there, and why he hadn't arrested me yet.

Well, he showed me around the renovations.

He nodded, accepting my answer.

Gotcha, gotcha.

He said, already navigating to another video.

Is there a problem?

Did he get in trouble?

Well,

there is a problem.

Not

its rotting body.

Not that you did anything wrong.

He said in an almost apologetic manner.

He could sense my discomfort and cleared his throat.

Before he hit play on the video, he explained.

Did he mention anything strange when you met?

Did he seem afraid of anybody or anything?

No.

So after you left, he missed his rounds.

We believe he slept in the center that evening, which isn't illegal.

He has late nights and early days, I get it, but when he did emerge later that night, well...

Oh,

I see.

I watched the grainy video fast forward until the door to the center open.

The sheriff then slowed the video and I watched his graham staggered out of the visitor center, still alive.

It'd be really funny if he wasn't a vampire and he just lived.

I left him down there.

I bit my tongue to hide my surprise.

Notice that he's possibly impaired.

His whole neck's ripped open.

He's covered in blood.

And the sheriff's like, he might have a boo-boo.

He might have a slot laceration.

He said, pointing to Graham as he stumbled across the parking lot.

We think he may have hit his head while.

I don't know.

Is he okay?

Without answering my question, he asked another.

Do you recognize this car?

I watched as the familiar old station wagon pulled into the parking lot.

I was too shocked to answer.

The family had returned almost four years too early.

I watched as they pounced on Graham, but they did not hurt him.

Instead, they dragged him to the bed of his own truck and tied him down at the ankles and wrist.

His arms and legs were splayed out to each corner of the bed.

The two men holding each arm, while the middle-aged woman and older woman held his legs, teenage girl just stood there, watching him.

And even though the footage was grainy, I swear I could see somebody else watching from the car window.

My sister.

Hold on.

You don't need to to see this.

He stumbled, trying to end the video, but instead fast forwarding it.

I watched as the family got back in their car and left, leaving Graham exposed in his truck.

I watched as the sun crept across the parking lot as it rose above the trees.

I watched his body ignite the moment the sunrise reached his foot.

I watched it burn him slowly from his feet all the way to his head until there was nothing more than a charred corpse.

I watched my friend die a second time.

So

it seems that anyone

they kill becomes a vampire, but they don't want everyone to be in the family, so they killed him again.

I guarantee you that's where all the ash inside of the hotel room comes from then.

Yeah, definitely.

Yeah.

I'm so sorry.

You shouldn't have seen that.

He stuttered, finally just powering down the tablet.

There's a moment of silence as he let me process the horrific murder I just witnessed.

We believe they doused him in an unknown accelerant.

We're not sure how, but they burned him alive.

Just like the young man we found in Henley's truck.

We just want to know why.

Do you recognize them?

I shook my head in disbelief.

We don't know who they are, but we feel they may be responsible for both deaths.

Felt my head spin and asked to sit down, realizing that I just witnessed my friend's death.

You already realize that.

The sheriff eased up on the questions and tried to soften the situation.

He offered me his card and told me to call him if I remembered anything.

He left me there on the couch in the lobby, reeling from the realization that I no longer had four years to figure it out.

They were already here.

That means they would be checking in sooner than later.

I couldn't help but feel that somehow they knew what I had done.

I needed to come up with a plan to keep myself safe and somehow free my sister from their grasp, but instead all I could do was replay the last words the sheriff said before I completely shut down.

He had pointed again to the frozen frame of the old man, the old woman, the middle-aged couple, and the teenage girl, and asked, Have you ever rented a room to this family?

I lied and told him.

No.

End of part four.

Pom, pom, pom.

Now we go to part five.

Part five.

Part five.

Say, you don't recall the renting this room to a Mesopotamian wind demon, do you?

No, just checking.

All right.

No.

I don't know.

You want to come by the.

You want to come by the station?

It gets lonely at night.

I could use somebody to keep me company.

I'll clean up blood.

That's what I like to hear.

Perfect.

Perfect.

Family was coming, and there was no way I could escape.

Not without my sister.

Unwilling to die in my bed, I decided to wait for them in the office, just as I always had.

The revolver rested neatly on my lap and the coffee pot brewed in the corner.

I considered collecting the crystalline rocks beneath the room to fashion some sort of weapon, but I feared they would notice their absence and act before I could.

I still had the one that ended the ravenous fiend in the caverns, but there was no way I could dispatch all of them in the same manner.

Not like that.

They were never alone.

So I sat in the office, plotting their demise and fighting the overwhelming urge to sleep.

It was some time after midnight when they arrived.

Despite the unlit vacancy sign and the empty parking lot, they pulled in as they always did, parking right outside their room.

The middle-aged man was the first to exit the car, rushing to the door with a restrained urgency.

The middle-aged woman followed him behind.

When they found it locked, both stood at the door.

In unison, they turned towards the old man as he stepped out of the car.

There he was, the park ranger from the photos, with the same haunting stare.

The three exchanged knowing glances, then turned their attention to the office, to me.

I gripped the revolver tight and watched as the old man opened the back door of the station wagon.

When he stepped aside, a dark figure emerged.

For a moment, she appeared as a walking shadow, devoid of light.

The truth was more horrifying than that.

The teenage girl, covered head to toe in fresh blood, stepped into the parking lot of my motel.

On the other side of the car, the old woman emerged.

The teenage girl stood facing my direction for what seemed like an eternity, waiting for something.

I realized all of them were looking directly at me.

The teenage girl moved first.

She turned back to the car and reached inside.

She turned back to me.

She was holding my sister.

It was the way that she held her in her blood-soaked arms that held this was a threat.

The old man broke from the group and walked towards the office.

Behind them, they all stared.

I took a deep breath and readied myself for what I had to do.

As he approached, he glanced up at the old sign that hung above.

You're always welcome.

He grabbed the knob and turned it, and when he opened the door, he smiled.

It was the same fake smile I'd seen a hundred times.

He then removed his hat and entered.

Sat there in disarmed shock.

I was unsure of what to do next, but my instincts took over for me.

Okay,

I said, surprising even myself.

I turned to grab the key hanging behind my desk and once again got a glimpse of the teenage girl.

Her eyes were still locked on me and my sister was still gripped tightly in her arms.

Here you go.

He took the key with a polite nod and walked casually out of the office.

I watched him join the family and head directly to the room with an unnerving sense of normality.

He opened the door and entered.

The rest followed in a straight line, except for the teenage girl.

She put down my sister, who then ran into the unlit room behind the others.

Teenage girl remained.

She watched me through the window with an unnerving gaze.

I only looked away for a moment, but it was long enough for her to disappear.

Immediately, I reached for the phone.

I had lied for too long and brought pain and despair to everyone around me.

I pulled the sheriff's card from my pocket and and dialed.

Picked up after one ring.

Sheriff.

Ah, you again.

Did you have it remember?

They're here.

There's a moment of silence.

The hotel?

Yeah,

same room that

the line went dead.

I dialed again.

No answer.

She's like, I know.

I'll get a third male figure killed in this story.

I know a way to get a third guy dead.

I want innocent blood to clean up.

I'm not going to say anything.

I'm not going to give him any information about vampires or monsters.

I'm going to tell him where they are and he's going to walk in like a lamb to the slaughter.

Uh-oh.

I gathered my thoughts and tried to work out a plan.

I had to figure out a way to separate them from my sister.

Maybe if they're eating the sheriff, I can get to her.

I needed to get her alone so that we could escape together.

Monster or not, she was still my only family.

I'd only gotten as far in my plan as I need to get her alone when I heard the car approach.

The red and blue lights flashed in the distance as the cruiser approached at a high speed.

However, the moment he hit the parking lot, he killed the lights and slowed to a crawl.

I watched him park too close to the family station wagon.

Then again, he was the only other vehicle in the parking lot.

There was nowhere to hide.

I went to the door, revolver in hand, and peered out through the window next to it.

With one hand on the knob, I waited for him.

Again, he stayed in his car for an uncomfortably long time, his sense of urgency seemingly lost.

I then realized he was probably calling in support, but I thought wrong.

Instead, he opened the door and with a casual saunter made his way to the family's room.

No!

She

she

keeps starting scenarios.

She may just watch them play out of shame.

She may be the most prolific serial killer of our generation.

She's one of the most prolific killers we've ever seen in a story.

I opened the door to warn him.

Yeah, great timing.

But before I could get out a word, he knocked, he waited, then opened the door himself and went inside.

Terrified, I wanted nothing more than to go back inside the office, but it was foolish to think anywhere was safe.

I stepped outside with my gun in my hand and crept towards the room.

I lingered back by the cars, listening for any sign of a struggle.

Minutes later, that sign came in the form of six gunshots.

Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.

They were followed by silence.

I ran, but not in the direction I expected.

I ran towards the room.

Six shots for six members of the family.

Foolishly, I'd hope he missed the last one.

I pushed open the door and stumbled inside.

What I found was not the heroic scene of a small town lawman standing over slain demons, but instead he was lying at the corner of the room, bleeding profusely from the gut.

As I said.

You sent him into the lion's den.

I'm telling you, most prolific

killer of our generation.

There is a family of vampires that you have seen.

They came across another vampire and in a gang ritual fashion tied him to the back of his own truck to immolate.

And now you sent this poor...

Sheriff who can't figure out how to pause an iPad.

You sent that guy straight into the mouth of the the beast, and then you hear gunshots, and you're like, maybe he did it.

Maybe he's okay.

Maybe it was the one told me explicitly, silver only slows us, but maybe lead kills them.

Sure, sweetie.

Whatever you want.

It's your world.

We're just living in it.

As I stepped into the room, the family gently pushed me aside as they walked calmly out of the room.

They paid no notice to the revolver dangling at my side the old man tipped his hat and flashed that fake smile as he passed as if there were nothing out of the ordinary where are you going you can't leave now

the sheriff shouted through the blood boiling in his mouth blam fired the gun again straight into his own stomach what what

straight into his own stomach oh i see wait now you have to turn me you have to turn me now

oh

whoa

okay i I didn't see that coming.

I thought maybe

the sheriff had something to do with vampire hunters.

Maybe he would be in the know.

Until he showed her the video of the immolation.

I'm like, well, if he was a vampire hunter, he wouldn't expose that to someone he didn't think was in on it.

But this is an interesting turn.

Okay.

He shouted, and with each word, the exertion pushed oozing blood from his wounds.

The older woman ignored him as she collected her earrings from the side table and walked out the door, followed by the teenage girl, now cleaned of blood and changed into a modest dress, neither acknowledging the dying man in the corner.

I covered up everything!

You owe me this!

Interesting.

So, just like her parents were working with the vampires so that they would keep their daughter alive,

he was covering up stuff so that

cool.

And with that, the door shut behind them, leaving me standing in the cursed room with this dying man.

Did you did you shoot yourself?

Frustrated, he he waved the gun wildly as blood seeped from his nose, mouth, and multiple bullet holes.

Seemed like a good idea at the time.

Looked down at this dying man and couldn't help but feel vindicated by my mistrust.

Be it dog, call an ambulance, would you?

That's just a funny line.

I pulled out my phone.

A look of momentary relief flashed across his face.

I started to dial, but then stopped.

Wait a minute.

Is this an opportunity to

like another guy die in front of me?

That's three for three of like indirectly leading to the death of someone by just watching it.

That is insane.

What do you mean they need you?

I asked, my finger hovering over the send button.

Frantic worries had in as he realized why I hesitated.

Ah, cut the shit.

We both know what they are.

You don't have to lie anymore.

You help me find them.

We both want the same thing, you and I.

I don't think so.

What did you get for them?

Really?

Did you ever wonder what happened to the bodies once that we're done with them?

Ones they didn't leave on the side of the road for me to handle?

Shook my head.

It's your property.

It's big, but not that big.

He said, realizing that I didn't know.

Where?

I asked, thinking about all the off-limit places my father restricted us from.

Dangerous sinkholes, the old septic tank, the open caves.

Wait, there's open caves on her property?

I guess.

My parents would never...

Your parents maybe.

But the old couple that ran this place did every damn thing they were asked.

And look what it got them.

Oh,

your parents maybe, but the couple that ran this place, interesting.

I shook my head, tears well into my eyes.

It got them their little girl back.

Hmm.

Interesting.

Okay, so this is a fun turn.

This is fun.

Like, I was enjoying the story, but this, like, there's a conspiracy and

the family was a part of it, and her parents were and stuff, or her fake parents.

That's cool.

I stood over the dying man,

my whole world coming down around me.

I knew the answers, but I was still not ready for the truth.

I looked out in the direction of where the bodies were hidden, as if looking through the wall itself, searching for them.

The septic.

But you don't want to see that.

I realized realized how close to death he was and hit Sind on the phone.

Don't bother.

Even if you drove, I don't want to make it to Gillis Road.

I'm a woman, I want your burner.

I tried to answer, but the words wouldn't come.

Stuck in my mouth with uncertainty.

Sheriff shook his head.

Sorry, Miss Dial.

My apologies.

Have a nice night.

Do what you will with my body, but without me, they're gonna come looking.

And when they do, this monster will be long gone, and you'll be left to clean up and take the blame.

You should probably have a plan for that.

But I didn't do anything.

It was all them.

It's your property, sort of.

He said, pausing as the thought slowly came to him.

They don't care if you fear them.

They're smarter than that.

They only care that you fear death.

I watched as his life slowly drained from his body.

I wanted to hold his hand to comfort him, but my own repulsion of what he had done overrode my empathy.

As he faded away, he looked me in the eyes, muttering one last thing.

I remember your parents.

What a shame.

You should never have been left here with them.

His voice trailed off as his eyes glazed over and his heart finally stopped.

I rolled him into an old sheet and dragged his body to the cruiser outside.

With great effort, I was able to heave his corpse into the back seat.

Drove it around to the back of the motel and then returned to clean up the trail of streaks.

She loves cleaning up blood.

Oh, favorite pastime.

pastime.

Favorite pastime.

She's like, basically, she loves the trail of streaked blood.

Blood cleanup.

You guys want to play a game of blood cleanup?

No.

What does that even mean?

Vampire friends.

They can kill people, then we'll clean the blood.

I'm going to hit you in the head with a hammer and I'm going to clean it all up.

I'm going to clean you up.

I'm going to clean it all up.

It's called cleanup.

Then return to clean the trail of streaked blood that led from the room to the parking lot.

I used buckets of warm water from the shower and scrubbed it clean with an old push broom.

It was a poor job, but I didn't have time for perfection.

I drove the cruiser along the strange path I had avoided my entire life.

My father had told me as a child that this place was unsafe, and as an adult, he further emphasized the danger of it.

This is where he took old rusted propane tanks that had sat for so long the sulfur smell had faded into a deadly absence.

This is where he disposed of waste that was unfit for the burn pit.

This is where he said that if I ever wandered into, it would cause everlasting harm.

At least he was telling the truth about that.

When I reached the unrecognizable location that I had avoided for years, I stopped the car.

I retrieved the large flashlight from the trunk and continued on, looking for any sign of, well, death.

I saw the rusted white pane of old propane tanks buried halfway beneath a layer of dirt, fallen leaves, and walked in that direction.

The smell hit first, the putrid stench of decay that was so thick you could taste it.

The ground beneath me seemed to soften as I neared the trench where an old septic tank once was.

It was never used or removed sometime after I was born.

It was the remnants of the dream home my father always promised to build for my mother.

Instead, they settled into their macabre routine and lived out their lives in the small cottage attached to the motel.

I always thought that my sister's death was the reason the dream was abandoned, but it turns out they just found other uses for the plot.

As my view crested over the ditch, my mind struggled to comprehend the amount of death that was discarded just a few feet in front of me.

Bodies in various states of decay, most of them were years or decades old, stabbed without regard to their humanity.

Rotted bodies set atop some bleached bones resting on a thick layer of decayed flesh, and on top of it all was poor Bill Henley.

His body was almost unrecognizable.

No longer the strong, imposing man that stood outside his truck.

Now, he was nothing more than a withered white corpse, drained of everything that gave him life.

Small incisions covered his legs, arms, belly, and neck.

He was drained of blood and wiped clean.

His eyes were now nothing more than deep black sockets.

I felt guilt for not warning him, but I realized I had a chance to make it right.

Uh,

so hold on.

So, Bill wasn't the one that was hanging up in the shower?

Yeah, it was him.

That was still Bill.

That was still so.

He went to the house, got the body brought it back here

the sheriff did yeah okay all right all right all right

i was about to say that would make four people that she let die

i pulled the sheriff from the back seat and dragged his body to the pit and rolled him down he landed just next to bill i collected the bloody sheet and carried them over to the nearby burned pit the one my father rarely used i lit a match and tossed it onto the sheets As I watched the flames consume and burn the bloody sheets, I laughed at the futility of burning evidence when I had a pit of dead bodies only a few feet away.

What was I trying to hide?

In the wake of that epiphany, I formulated a plan.

Stomped out the burning sheets and smothered the fire.

I would need those later.

I returned to the cruiser and siphoned most of the gas from the tank, spilling it into a bucket I found nearby.

I soaked the sheets in any dry wood I could find, which wasn't much.

I then maneuvered the cruiser to the edge of the grave so the headlights would illuminate the rotting mound of death.

As I walked across the corpses, searching for fat-soaked fat-soaked clothing or anything that would burn, I could hear the old bones snap and crunch beneath my weight.

I listened to the nauseating squish of rotted organs rupturing below.

At the time I climbed out, the smell of death and gasoline were indistinguishable.

Didn't matter, though.

I knew exactly how I was going to dispatch these horrible, soulless creatures.

I knew exactly how I was going to kill these vampires that had haunted me my entire life.

These beings that cursed my family's very existence.

I was going to bring justice to these people.

I was going to murder every last one of the family.

Except, of course, my sister.

End of part five.

This is the final.

The final meme.

Final meme.

Final part.

Let's go.

Part six.

Part six.

Part six.

Red blood seeped into the clean white towels sitting where the sheriff took his final breath.

Smelled of rusted iron and musty linen.

It was an odd feeling to stand in that empty motel room where decades of untold carnage had taken place so close close to where I spent my life.

Somehow though, still felt like home.

In all my years of emptying the ashtray and replacing their unused sheets, I never lingered for longer than I had to.

In the back of my mind, I believed I'd always sensed the evil beneath the floorboards, but now I had all the time in the world to linger.

I was waiting for their return.

It was only an hour or so before sunrise when I heard the familiar rattling shake of their old station wagon pulling into the parking lot.

I gathered up the towels, stuffed them into my cleaning cart, and did my best to remain small and invisible when the door opened.

The old man was the first to enter.

He greeted me with that eerie fake smile.

The others followed in after,

pushed my things aside and waited for my chance to exit.

Teenage girl entered last, holding the hand of my sister.

They continued about their business as if I weren't even there.

Most of them headed straight to the bathroom where I heard the trap door open to their lair below.

The old man stayed behind and lit up a cigarette and then offered one to the old woman.

She turned back from the bathroom and joined him at the table.

My sister, on the other hand, immediately turned on the old television.

She stood in the center of the room and watched as an old black and white Western movie began with the shot of the sunrise.

With the older couple paying no attention to me, I leaned in and whispered to my sister, I think you left this.

I said, pulling the photo of her and I from my pocket.

She broke her gaze from the cowboy on the screen and glanced at the photo.

She took it from my hand.

I have the other half if you want it, with mama and papa in it.

I said, looking over at the old woman, only spared me a passing glance.

Lowered my voice even more.

I can bring it to you in a few hours.

You'll have to wake up early.

She glanced at the curtains covering the window and the world outside.

I tapped at the back side of the photo.

She turned it over.

I had written the words, If you are alone, I will protect you.

In red ink.

She nodded i left and returned to my room i did my best to sleep for the next few hours but i was constantly awoken by horribly vivid nightmares that reflected my current maddening reality when the alarm went off i'd already been awake for an hour i crawled out of bed and forced myself to eat something such a heavy sense of impending doom i found it difficult to focus on the menial tasks like brushing my teeth Why would you even do that?

Yeah, I don't know.

Even like two,

I don't know.

Like, it feels weird to even include that kind of shit.

It feels weird that you took a nap.

How would you be able to stay awake away from it?

Yeah.

Too anxious to think about anything else, I checked the family room, cracking the door slightly and peeking in.

It was empty except for some lingering smoke that danced with the dust and the sunbeams.

My sister was still asleep beneath the floorboards.

I used this time to walk back out to the septic tank where I lit the gasoline sheets of fat soap clothing in the burned pit.

The flames reached high and I prayed this would burn for at least a few hours, long enough enough to be noticed when the time came.

At the edge of the pit, I looked down at the legacy of horror that my family would forever be aligned with.

If it were ever discovered, this quaint motel in the mountains would not survive and my grandfather's legacy would no longer end with its demolition, but live on as a cobb folklore.

As the corpse fat-fueled flames danced in the burned pit nearby, It became clear that I was on the precipice of insanity.

My plan was little more than a half-baked assumption that I could somehow defeat beings that had had lived over three of my lifetimes, but it felt as if I had no other choice.

So I collected every single tank of propane that would fit into the cruiser, stacked them floor to ceiling in the back seat with a few more on the passenger side, seat, and floor.

There was just enough gas left in the tank to make it back to the parking lot.

Even sputtering on fumes, I was able to coast it to a spot near the family station wagon.

The sun was low in the sky and daylight was waning.

I checked the room again, knocking lightly as I entered.

I slipped inside without opening the door wide and found my sister sitting on the bed, shrouded in the darkness of the heavy blackout curtains.

I produced the photograph of my parents from my back pocket and handed it to her.

Do you still want to leave?

Yes, but I will make sure you are safe.

They won't trap you in those caves, I promise.

They think you changed your mind.

Mess said you were too afraid to leave this place.

She said you were weak and insignificant.

She said that you were nothing to fear.

She's wrong, I said, pulling the comforter from the bed.

The light was low, but it was enough to harm her pale, fragile skin.

I had seen how quickly it engulfed Graham.

I knew how little it took to kill them.

I had my sister lay on the bed, wrapped her in comforters.

I tucked in every corner and picked her up, holding the seams close to my body.

I carried her to the office as fast as I could.

Once inside, I took her behind the desk and told her to hide.

The window shades were already drawn, but she remained covered, hunkered down behind the check-in counter.

Do not move until I return.

Do you understand?

She nodded.

I sprinted back to the room as fast as my legs would take me.

The sun was now setting, and I only had a short time before the family would wake.

I remade the bed with the comforters from next door and smoothed them out.

See if they would even notice.

With everything back in place, I returned to the cruiser and dragged each tank into the room.

I mean, it's a fine plan, but it's just kind of funny.

Like, I'm gonna blow it up.

I'm gonna take all these propane tanks and we're gonna get a big boom.

You think they're doing that?

Do you think the only reason she came to this conclusion was just because of that letter that was just like, burn it down, burn it all down?

Yeah, well, I mean, you imagine

she saw with the one she killed in the cave that maybe it won't kill them, but it'll slow them down.

I imagine if you immolate something.

Actually, no, you can dry them out, right?

Yeah.

Seems to be the solution.

So I'd say this problem, this will probably work.

Why not?

One by one.

I took the heaviest one first and opened the valves wide.

Some hissed violently, while others were a low, breathy whistle.

Faded odor of sulfur was faint with age, and I barely noticed the scent.

With the last tank open, I sealed the door shut and shoved wet towels at the base.

I set a timer for sundown and hurried back to my sister.

I found her huddled beneath the comforter with both photos in hand, holding them together as one.

She looked at me with sad eyes.

I wish I never had to leave.

I miss being a child.

The statement itself sounded so odd, coming from such a little girl.

Do you remember why you left?

Mother said it was the only way.

She promised to always be waiting, though.

She lied.

She did her best.

But people can't wait forever.

Said, brushing her hair back.

We can.

She said, looking up at me with eyes that I only now realized were marbled with deep black veins.

Why do you visit when you do?

Every four years.

The road is long.

And the further we go from the caverns, the more we must feed.

The more we feed, the more dangerous it gets.

Why don't you stay here where it's safe?

We can only stay for as long as the earth allows us.

If we stay too long, the soil becomes impure and poisoned.

We must always move.

Only in the caverns can we sleep forever.

Then, why not stay in the caverns?

Would you choose a life of eternal darkness and constant hunger?

She replied with the slightest hint of indignance.

No.

Before now, we had never stopped and we've never turned around.

So why now?

We had to to return so Master could destroy the betrayer.

My watch alarm beeped in warning.

Dusk was coming.

Graham?

She leaned in with the intensity of a zealot.

When Uncle Matthew felt his father burn, he begged the master to come back and seek vengeance, but she refused.

She felt he was responsible for his own demise until she felt her maker die.

You see, we can feel the pain of the others of the ones that made us.

It keeps us connected.

It keeps us safe.

It makes us family.

When we found that Betrayer had stolen the gift and killed our others, he deserved a painful death.

Okay, so Uncle Matthew's the old man, right?

Which

is

her actual uncle, because that is the missing husband of the aunt who had the bed and breakfast, right?

Yeah, and he's the one who got afflicted by the dude in the cave.

Yes.

No.

Uncle Matthew felt his father burn.

His father was the teenage teenage boy.

So Uncle Matthew must have been the young man who

went

Uncle Matthew.

Yeah,

he was the guy that drove the boy, the Uncle Matthew's father, who was the first person or one of the first people to get infected in the caves.

Yes, because remember there was that line about that the monster in the cave said that it was just me and him, but then he fell in love with her and took my legs.

So the her he's referring to must be the old woman or like the mother or maybe actually, no, it'll be the teenage girl.

Teenage girl must be master.

Yeah.

Yes.

Because like back in like 1900, that vampire in the cave made the boy, made the father the first vampire.

And then he became smitten with this girl, a teenage girl that was his age.

The vampire in the cave turns her, and then they both abandon him.

So then the teenage boy and teenage girl over the the next hundred years begin to turn more and more people, among them being Uncle Matthew, the little girl's actual uncle, husband of the aunt who has the bed and breakfast, different people along the route.

Because then, when father, the teenage boy, dies, Uncle Matthew felt him burn.

And that makes sense because you feel the emotions of the one who turned you.

So the teenage boy came to the bed and breakfast and turned Matthew.

And then,

yes, because when he died, when the teenage boy died, Uncle Matthew felt it.

But the teenage girl, who was the wife, vampiric wife, whatever, of the teenage boy, then felt the guy in the cave die, the vampire in the cave die.

Yes, right?

Yeah, I think that's correct.

But so the little girl now

is gone.

She's like, she's like super into this whole, like, we had to kill him.

He was evil.

He was awful.

So we gave him a painful death.

And knowing our protagonist as we've known her thus far, she is not going to understand what's going on and confess that she was the one that killed him.

And the little girl's going to be like, oh, we have to burn you now.

You have to die.

Yep.

My watch beeped again.

I needed to return to the room, but my sister sensed this and grabbed me by the wrist.

He was my friend.

He didn't kill them.

I said, taken aback by her reveling in his murder.

But he did.

And she let him burn in the sun so that his agony would last.

Only she decides who lives forever.

That's why Mother's sister was mad.

She was refused the gift despite what Uncle Matthew promised.

So she lit herself on fire and tried to take us with her.

Uncle Matthew begged Master to wait for his father.

But the boy was buried and the son was coming soon, so we left him.

Master said we do not have room for the weak.

She said, her eyes ablaze with righteousness.

Okay, so that explains why they got separated from father, the teenage boy, because they were all sleeping underneath the bed in breakfast when the aunt went crazy, or like wanted the power and set everything on fire.

I pulled my arm from her grasp and stood.

That all changes tonight,

said stepping away from her.

I remember the day you arrived.

That was the day that everything changed.

You were a child when I was born.

Yes.

I remember the day you arrived here.

Mother found you hiding beneath the bed.

Too small to consume and too young to be worthy of notice.

You left your orphan, and mother took you in.

She said with a wicked smile, as if she could taste my pain.

My mind immediately went back to the photo of myself with those strangers.

I thought back to the coldness my mother had for me, while her warmth for my while her warmth for other children was always evident.

I don't remember any of that.

Why would you?

I did not want to believe her.

That is very on par for our character.

I didn't like the thing she was saying, so I don't think so.

I don't think that's correct.

Also, that little bitch is dying for sure.

Yeah, yeah.

The alarm beeped a final alert, and I realized I was out of time.

I sprinted to the family's room and pulled back the wet towel.

I held it to my mouth and entered.

I smelled nothing, but I swear I could sense a haziness to the air.

Tied the towel around my mouth and grabbed the first two tanks.

They were lighter than before, which means means they were emptied.

I hurried as fast as I could, throwing them into the parking lot.

Just needed them to be out of the room.

It was impossible to do quietly, but I did my best to muffle any bump while keeping the door closed as I entered and exited.

While it took me a half hour to fill the room, it only took me minutes to empty it of the tanks.

My hands bled from cuts on the rusted metal handles.

On my way out with the final tank, I heard the floor in the bathroom creak as the hatch opened.

I locked the door and returned the towel to the crack beneath the door.

I moved a few of the other tanks tanks around the corner, but abandoned the tasks when I heard movement inside.

I spread it back to the office and found my sister already standing in the center of the room.

What are you doing?

Keeping you safe.

I am safe.

She knows you won't hurt me.

You can't hurt any of us.

Just kill the girl.

That's what I'm saying, dude.

Fuck that.

You fuck her, man.

You haven't seen her.

You thought she was dead.

You haven't seen her since you were like 10 years old.

She's doing the fucking Fortnite L dance with her fucking hand on her forehead like that dancing and she's basically just like yeah whatever orphan good luck trying to kill me you're weak orphan freak we had to burn your friend because he hurt our master

just kill her you better watch out dude i'll take a fucking tablespoon of salt and drive it into your chest

i've got a rock in my pocket with your name on it ready to go straight into your forehead i have a rock and i will severely hurt you and not call anyone to help you better watch watch out.

I'm going to let you get into a predicament that I cause you to get in, like you're going to trip and fall into the rock.

And I'll watch.

I'll pull out my phone and think of calling 911, but tell them it was an accident.

I love watching people die when I could have helped them.

Standing in the doorway to the office with my sister staring through me with those deep black eyes, I began to realize that she was not the little girl I thought I knew.

Really?

This immortal being that's older than me, but younger isn't the little girl I knew.

knew.

Whoa.

God damn.

This story's got went to goo and go in fucking goofy mode, dude.

Come on, thanks.

Gorsh.

It was her reveling in the pain of others that made me realize she was more them than me.

In more ways than one, she wasn't my sister anymore.

Good.

It was then that I heard an unholy scream come from inside the family's room.

The teenage girl, the master, I was right, ding, ding, ding, had noticed my sister was gone.

I thought for a moment that my plan was unraveling but the old man was stuck in his habits the door was thrown open and the teenage girl emerged beast-like in her anger but the old man the park ranger was not concerned instead he did as he always did he lit a cigarette the explosion shook the very foundation of the motel pictures

I mean, that's just funny.

The explosion shook the very foundation of the motel.

Pictures were thrown from the walls and glass shattered.

When I looked out at the parking lot, my ears still ringing, I saw the master lying motionless on the asphalt.

I stepped outside with my sister rushing past me, letting out a primal scream as she ran to the master.

Behind them, the motel room was aflame and hellish fire.

I could hear a loud, ghoulish moan even above the crackle of embers.

The old man stumbled out, howling in pain.

First time in my life I had seen any sign of emotion from him.

His flesh dripped from the bone as the heat melted his skin.

His white skull was slowly revealed behind blackened flesh as it sloughed off his face.

With each step, he left behind charred chunks of melted skin and a smoldering trail of burning gore.

He made it only a few more feet before collapsing in a heap of scorched agony.

He struggled to crawl away from the flames, but as he tried, his muscles separated from his body like what I can only describe as pulled pork.

The building collapsed in on itself, trapping the others inside.

I could hear their screams as they they begged for the master to save them.

She awoke suddenly and leaped up.

Her eyes seemed to darken and a black orb set deep in her skull.

She let out another primal scream and ran towards me.

I reached into the back of my pants and pulled out the revolver, aimed, and fired.

The first shot struck her in the shoulder, and it seemed to surprise her, the pain from the silver-tipped bullet.

She slowed for a moment, feeling the sting.

I watched as my sister felt it too.

The master bared her sharp teeth and continued on, but I waited to fire.

I I waited until I knew I would not miss.

I waited until she was close enough to see my own reflection in her black eyes.

I waited until it was almost too late, and I fired.

All six rounds struck her, with the last catching her right between those dead, soulless eyes.

She dropped to the ground, but I remembered, silver cannot kill, it only slows.

Pulled out the crystalline rock that killed the very creature that started this nightmare and approached the master with caution.

I could hear her rapid short breaths as her body worked to push out the silver-tipped bullets.

I rolled her over and raised the crystalline rock above my head, ready to plunge it into her heart.

But I was blindsided.

My sister tackled me to the ground.

You cannot kill us!

She screamed, her eyes now full of black orbs.

She's the killer.

She's evil.

I'm your sister.

She showed her teeth and leaned in so close I could feel her cold breath on my neck.

You are.

Food.

She opened wide and bit down.

I could feel her sharp jacket teeth as they pierced my skin, tearing at my flesh.

I had no choice.

I had to fight back.

I only meant to hurt her when I plunged the crystalline rock into her side.

She howled in pain and rolled off of me.

I saw the strange, salted rock do its work as the skin around her wounds started to shrivel and dry.

I went to pull it out, but she pushed me away and grabbed hold of it herself.

She yanked at the deadly stake, piercing into her side, trying to remove the rock, but it broke.

A larger part fell to the ground with a dull end.

The rest remained inside her, eating away at her innards.

She looked me in the eyes one more time.

For a moment, just a moment.

I could see the face of the little girl I once knew.

She collapsed to the ground as her ribcage collapsed in on itself.

She was gone.

I looked back to the master, but the place where she fell was now just a spot of wet blood on the asphalt.

I looked frantically for her, the orange flames of the fire illuminating everything.

She was still alive, and I was defenseless.

I picked up the dull rock, ran towards the cruiser.

I could feel the moisture leach out of my hands as I gripped the rock as tight as I could.

The explosion shattered the front window of the cruiser, so I had to work fast.

From the front seat, I retrieved the items I'd taken from the sheriff's body, handcuffs, keys, and a service pistol.

When I stood up and turned around, she was already there, silhouette among the backdrop of flames.

I fired again.

The bullet struck her chest, but she did not flinch.

Instead, she flashed a ghoulish smile.

There's nowhere to hide, and I knew that it was impossible to outrun her, so I chose the only safe place I could think of.

I threw open the back door to the the cruiser and crawled in, though I was careful not to pull it shut just yet.

The master leapt onto the hood of the car and sneered at me through the metal gate separating the front and back seats.

Slowly, she crossed over to the opposite side of the car, her gaze locked on me like the predator she was.

I backed against the door, ready to push it open behind me, but even then I knew I couldn't outrun her.

She opened the rear door across from me.

Her long, clawed nails gripped the metal grate over the window as she pushed the door wide open.

I know she was sure that she had me trapped, so she toyed with her prey.

She moved slow and deliberate as she crawled into the back seat with me, her pitch-black eyes swirling with reflections of the fire outside.

She smiled and her jagged, toothy grin was revealed, dripping with foul-smelling slime.

Again, I waited until she was close enough to kill, and then I taunted her.

This is what I used to kill your maker, I said, holding up the broken crystalline rock.

Her emotionless eyes remained fixed on me.

Her expression was unchanging.

With an inhuman quickness, she she grabbed hold of my wrist, tight enough to break a bone, but I held the rock as long as I could.

I watched her eyes and waited.

The moment she broke away to glance at the dull broken rock that killed her creator, I acted.

With my free hand, I slammed the handcuff link onto her wrist.

She squeezed tight with retribution, and I could hear the bone snap.

I dropped the rock and kicked backwards.

Tumbled out of the cruiser and into the parking lot, hitting the asphalt with a sickening thud.

She then leapt at me, but fell short, unable to break free from the handcuff that I had secured to the metal dividing grate inside.

I kicked the door shut and then ran around the vehicle as she yanked at the handcuffs.

I slammed the other door shut.

With her free hand, she tried to open the door, but found it locked from the outside.

Slowly, I stepped away, watching the violent flurry of movement as she struggled to break free from the restraints.

She kicked at the metal-grated windows, managing only to dent them.

From a distance, I watched the fire burn in the darkness, hidden by the night sky, and I waited for her to die.

I was waiting for sunrise to come up and purge this world of her evil.

From the back seat of the cruiser, she screamed, threw herself against the windows.

Why can't she break out of the handcuffs?

I don't know.

The vampire?

I guess she's not as strong as we thought.

Maybe.

Maybe they're silver or something.

Who knows?

From the back seat of the cruiser, she screamed and threw herself against the windows.

I watched her fight for hours, locked in the back seat.

Eventually, she even resorted to gnawing off her own hand.

Thick black blood spurted from her wounds, spraying the glass and obstructing my view inside.

As the sun crept over the trees, she stopped fighting.

I wasn't sure if she accepted her death or just expended the last of murderous will to live.

I expected to hear her scream as the sun took her body, but she did not.

I watched as the flames inside the vehicle licked at the blood-spattered windows, and I knew that she was dead.

Just as Graham's body became a charred black husk, so did that of my sister and the old man.

The master, though, she burned so hot, nothing but dust remained in the back seat of the cruiser.

As I stood over the corpse of what I now knew was never my sister, I realized that I was no longer linked to this hellish place.

I was free from the tether of the bloodline that kept me here, burdened by a sense of loyalty to a family that was never mine.

I emptied the safe of the blood money that was meant to maintain this motel forever.

There was no longer anything that held meaning for me here.

So I watched as the flames slept from the room to room and eventually the office and the cottage itself.

Smoke from the septic tank burned pit still billowed thick black smoke, and I hoped that whoever came, it would draw their attention there.

I hoped that finding those bodies would bring closure to the families who lost their loved ones on the dead roads.

I hoped that those bodies would be the last.

I hope that I had actually ended it tonight.

I hope that after hearing my story, you'll understand.

I hope that if you ever meet a family that seemingly never ages, you will know what they are and know that whatever they promise, you will never be a part of their family.

I left in their old station wagon with nothing but a duffel bag of old bills, no longer bound to the motel by the legacy of blood.

As I passed the fire engines on the way down the mountain, I thought to myself,

the family may have been able to live forever, but until now, I'd never been able to live at all.

Okay, I just want to say, can I get the first thought in?

That's the end, by the way.

So to destroy a, so to destroy a family of immortal vampires, all you need is to firebomb someone and have a Himalayan salt lamp, and you'll be okay.

You just need a lot of table salt, and then you need a lot of propane tanks to cause an explosion.

Yeah, I think, like, I.

Isn't she a vampire now?

She got bit.

Yeah, but I mean, I don't.

That's what I thought.

She, like, didn't she fucking get like bit like a damn thing?

She dug into her neck.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm surprised she was.

She used to be one.

There's burn and flame, too.

I don't know.

This story, I thought that the story was okay.

I think that, like, I feel like the beginning really gripped me with the characters and stuff, but it kind of was one of those things where, like, the more that the mystery kept getting solved, the more that I was just kind of like, it just became pretty generic.

And I guess not forgettable, but I don't know.

Just feel like I was kind of bored.

I mean, I mean, there was some good

like

reveals.

Like, I liked the reveal of the sheriff.

sheriff helping them and the pits out back there's some cool stuff but it just like the at the end when it got an action set piece it kind of lost me could it have been a thing where the the family is still mysterious like it's kind of like the tales from the gas station thing where it's like this ongoing thing and even if you like remove some of these these these elements or pieces of you know like the people that kind of like kept you you know like your family locked away or this mysterious family moving from town to town or whatever like i like the idea of finding out more people in the community know about it than you thought and you get to unravel that mystery.

But I feel like solving it with just firebombing and the Himalayan salt lamp, to me, I'm like, eh, I don't know.

It was like, it was okay.

Like, I think the most effective one was the caves with the creepy nosefratu dude down there.

I think that's fun, but it all seemed to just kind of be like, and they're dead, and we move on to the next part.

You know, I kind of, I guess I just wanted to dance around more of that.

But all in all, I mean, I really enjoyed the setup.

I like the, I like my favorite moments once again were the cave, Graham getting killed, and her like kind of like bidding this you know or like talking with this thing in this cave I also really liked I think probably no my favorite part was probably the teenage boy coming and he was like naked in the room and it was just kind of really creepy and that kind of fun setup to where the before this she always cleans up like a weird mess but now it's just like

uh you see all the the blood and the deer carcass in there.

I thought that was a lot of fun.

And her kind of like figuring out, like you getting to peek behind the curtain for the first time, I think was fun.

But otherwise than that, it was just kind of like, oh, I'll just firebomb them.

There you go.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, it's

with it.

I think it's that way with any horror story.

I can't really think of horror stories that I enjoy when they go action.

You know, some of them do it really well, but I feel like it loses a lot of it.

And there was so much good setup stuff

that at the end, it's a little, especially with it not being said that she is.

Oh, a horror story that goes to action?

Predator.

Well, then it quits being a horror story, but it's such a good action movie that it's fine.

It's still a monster.

In that case, I mean, yeah, it's not.

I would say, I mean, like, I think that the threat's a monster or whatever, but I think it's definitely like it's an action film guised as a monster.

Alien's action film.

Yeah.

Alien, right?

Yeah.

Alien's scary for the first half, and the last half isn't scary, but it's such a good action and suspense film that I don't care.

Whereas in a visual medium, it's kind of harder to convey visual action set pieces than it is in film, right?

So

I don't know.

I could have done without it, although it is dramatic and I see that could

how I see how people could enjoy it, just not for me in the ending, especially with it not being explicitly stated that she is a vampire because I'm pretty sure she should be one.

Yeah, but the setup was great.

I really like some of the characters, even if we had fun with her, like leaving people behind.

Yeah.

I like the idea of like the master being a young teenage girl.

That's a cool idea.

I like a lot of stuff with the teenage boy and like the

sheriff was interesting.

The cave part was interesting.

It was cool.

It had a lot of really high moments.

I think it was a good story and I enjoyed reading it.

I think it was successful when it was more character focused and I think it lost me when it was trying to do the badass vampire stuff.

I think.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because we just, I mean, also, how many times have you seen or like, have we like the archetype of like vampires and all this weird stuff and everything.

I kind of like the idea of the vampires are also more of a threat when you just like or they're so Mysterious and there's so much distance between it that they're just these like omnipotent beings where it's like you might as well not even fuck with them because there's nothing you can do You know what I mean?

Yeah, so just unraveling the characters is where I had the most fun I mean, it's not that kind of story.

I'm kind of just arguing for something else at this point, but I almost like the idea of the vampires being so otherworldly and distant that you don't really know they're vampires.

You know, it's just like a thing.

Yeah,

almost not even labeling it as a vampire, but it's like all the tropes and stuff are there, but you never come out and say it.

I think it's also kind of fun, too.

Yeah,

there's a movie that's an example in my head of that, but I can't think of it right now.

Makes me think of kind of like Let the Right One In.

I mean, I know that's a vampire movie, but it's like there's nothing specifically where it's like, you're a vampire?

Or maybe there is nothing that I can't remember, but it's just like a little girl that's obviously has the tendencies of

vampire kind of thing.

Great job.

I'll say one, I'll say one that's kind of similar to this in parts.

The Descent.

Obviously, they're not intelligent in that movie.

They're more like animals.

But when they start getting attacked by the vampires left and right down in the cave, those could be vampires or some troclodyte thing, but it's just a threat.

It's just a thing you run into.

Basically, you don't have to, I don't think.

Say, I mean, also,

just splitting hairs and everything we're saying is subjective.

Yeah, yeah.

It was a fun story that I enjoyed.

If we're not talking about a specific story, it was well written, too.

I think it's just the pacing of

some of the things.

I had more fun just like drawing out some of these characters, and that I would have preferred that more.

That being said, that's not what the story is, but that's just my two cents.

All in all, though.

That was good.

Fun story.

Fun read.

Thank you guys so much for listening on audio platforms.

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Bye-bye.