Lurking in Darkness

It was New year's eve and all the folks were ready to say goodbye to the year 1955.
But 18 year old Margaret Jones wasn't attending any party; she was just confined to her bedroom at her Uncle's bungalow in a secluded settlement, located few kilometres away from outskirts of Belapur, a Himalayan city. The settlement had some surviving Anglo-Indian families living in Independent India.

Margaret shared a love-hate relationship with her Uncle Andrew. Being overprotective, he never let her make new friends or visit her former schoolmates. Even being isolated, she, however, found solace in books, that were gifted on special occasions. She prefered to read horror novels as well as novels that had an antihero or rebel as a protagonist.

But that time, she wasn't reading any novel. She was drowned in her thoughts as her face had a tensed look. She held a letter from her friend Charlie, who once lived in that settlement and later migrated to Delhi. He had written:

"Dear Margaret,

I hadn't been answering your letters since a month. I had been busy with my college exams. Though, I was concerned all the time.... from the time you wrote about mysterious death of Mr. Williamson, due to sudden blood loss. I was seriously shocked. Aunt Rosie had written to me that she heard Father Richard telling Mrs. Williamson that he suspected that her husband was killed by a vampire. I thought, at that time, that she would be just spreading rumours....."

A memory sailed in her consciousness. Though Margaret hadn't attended Mr. Williamson's funeral but she visited Mrs. Dawson, Mr. Williamson's sister, after a week of that incident along with her aunt Elizabeth. She had overheard Mrs. Dawson saying:
Lizzie, dear... my brother told me several times that he always felt that somebody used to invade his room at occasional nights. I thought that he might be hallucinating due to his sudden sickness and then... he died... he experienced the same thing for three nights...

Margaret could've ignored that weird feeling in her heart, that tried to convince her to believe it as a vampire attack, though it challenged her rationality. But a series of unnatural deaths compelled her to believe it.

It was morning of 30th December, she remembered. That morning, she joined her uncle and aunt for breakfast on time, however, her punctual cousin, James didn't show up. She felt that it was weird for him not to be on time. When asked about him, her aunt replied with reluctance, "He has high fever.... he's not well..."
"She's lying," Margaret thought in suspicion.
Soon after breakfast, they were visited by Father Richard, a priest. He had approached the Jones family for a clandestine reason. When Margaret decided to interrogate him, she was commanded to go to her room and not to come down unless it was some valid reason. Also, she won't be able to meet James, until he was cured.

She was known for being rebellious. She, somehow, sneaked into James' room when her Uncle had gone to meet Father Richard and her Aunt was taking a noon siesta.

As she tiptoed in the room, she glanced at James sleeping on the comfortable bed. She couldn't recognize her chubby cousin, who was then reduced to bones. His reddened eyes and swollen lips contrasted his pale sick face. She saw a silver Holy cross worn around his neck through a silver chain. She felt an eerie aura, covering the room. The room was strangely embellished with garlands of garlics....

"Ah..." She was woken up from her thoughtful state by the loud sound made by clock as it struck indicating the beginning of new year.

She gasped and approached the window to catch some breath. As she stared at the snowy ground and then the full moon, she caught a sight of a large sized silhouette of a bat against the silver moon.
No! It wasn't exactly a bat! She blinked and moved away from the window. The flames in the small fireplace suddenly extinguished. She grasped her woolen coat as she shivered due to cold fear.

Was it...a vampire?

As adrenaline rushed through her veins, she gathered up courage to checkout her cousin. Her mind seemed to be bipolar as one part encouraged her to be brave and another part pulled her into the grave of fear. Still she held a silver cross, that her aunt gave her and stuffed some garlics in her coat. She had been preparing for this moment yet she wasn't brave enough.

She opened the door and walked out with noiseless and careful yet quick steps. She descended downstairs but as she entered the corridor, she saw her Uncle with Father Richard and his fellow priests almost invading James' room. They seemed to be waiting outside all night.

Now she didn't care about anything and rushed to see her cousin. She reached the entrance, as she heard a quick sound of shooting of a bullet, followed by mixture of worried masculine voices and a weird screeching sound. She saw her Uncle comforting James while Father Richard holding Holy cross against a pale skinned, red eyed creature with bat-like wings perching in the balcony. Its fanged mouth had blood all over. James' blood...

Margaret suppressed her scream and lurked in darkness outside the room and peeped in through half-open door. The vampire somehow escaped, though it seemed to have been injured with a silver bullet (shot by Uncle Andrew). Everything was silent for few moments. "He's cold..." Uncle Andrew whispered in perplexity, "No..."
"He's no more..." one of the priests checked his pulse and said.

Margaret pulled herself away and rushed to her room. She couldn't stop shivering and crying. She approached the window of her room to close it. But as she reached there, she saw two red glowing eyes in thick foliage of tall deodar trees near the bungalow. They stared her with an endless thirst for blood.