What Happened at Vampire Manor

1. Warm Fire on Your Back

What Happened at Vampire Manor (posted on 'Vampires are Real' forum by angelwaste: December 17, 2018 19:28 GMT

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I would like to share with you a story about something that happened to me in the summer of my seventeenth year. My brother and I had just moved in with our father after our mother passed away from cancer. The town we found ourselves in was a strange one, a fact that was immediately made known to me and my brother too, who felt the same way...in the beginning. What was strange about this town, you ask? Vaybridge was a small area with roughly a population of two thousand. It was mostly secluded, just outside Ontario and was the sort of place where people would go if they ever wanted to camp out or spend the weekend in a log cabin in the woods. Except we were to live here and it wasn't temporary. My father was the town tailor and so he often had customers coming over. As such, the house was seldom quiet and I used to make a habit of retreating to our room to avoid the conversation of strangers who would always seek to delve into our past after the customary greeting of, "Dave, I didn't know you had kids!"

On one particular occasion, I'd fallen asleep in front of the fire and when I woke up, it was to the sound of one of my father's customers laughing heartily about beer. I was disgruntled at having been woken up and began to retreat to the stairs. They caught sight of me through the door in the hallway and I saw that it was an old man with a chubby gut.

"Hey, who's that Richy?"

"That's my daughter. Lexi come in here and say hi to Mr. Brown."

I relaxed the expression on my face to one that was more forgiving and poked my head in through the door.

"Good day, sir."

"Ah, what a beautiful child. I didn't know you had kids, Richard."

I groaned internally, wondering if it was impolite if I said goodbye and checked out of the conversation.

"Actually, they're twins."

"Twins you say? Where's the other young lass?"

"It's a he. They're fraternal, see?"

"Ho ho," he said with a strange delight. "Call him down. I want to meet him too."

I glanced at my father who ushered me to obey with a wave of his hand. Without a word, I turned to go up the stairs to the room we shared. Xander was lying on his bed with his phone, his headphones on.

He noticed me standing at the door and raised one of the earmuffs. "What?"

"Someone wants to meet you."

"Well I don't." He said obstinately. As I continued to stare at him, he eventually relented, sighing as he got up from bed. I made my way back down the stairs and entered the room again where our father had gotten out the measuring tape. Xander was a couple steps behind me.

The fat old man was now standing on a box in the middle of the room as my father proceeded to take his measurements.

"Hello sir," Xander said with uncharacteristic cheer. Mr. Brown appraised him with a delighted eye, "I see the resemblance is striking. Twins! When I was younger, I used to tell my mother that I wished she'd had another one of me. Ho ho, she didn't take too kindly to the idea."

My mouth twitched but Xander to my surprise was laughing agreeably with him. He was better at being double faced than I was.

"So where were you guys all along? Richy I never figured you had kids so grown. When did they arrive?"

Here it was. The reason I hated all the guests.

"They were with their mom before. She was a fine young lass, taking care of them all those years –"

"What happened to your neck?" I interjected.

Mr. Brown seemed surprised at the question but truly, I could see the white of gauze that had been done over what seemed like a fairly large wound. The scarf he wore had shifted during his conversation and I had immediately caught sight of it.

"Oh, this here?" He seemed disoriented for a second as though he was trying to remember something. "I was chopping wood."

"You need to be more careful with that axe, Brown," my father said.

"It's a pretty shallow wound. The winters here can be unforgiving. But for a warm fire on your back, it's worth it."

"You should have had one of the boys do it for you. Jason's handy with an axe."

"Ah, I can never talk to him these days. These teenagers are uncontrollable. I remember when we used to go hunting deer together." He then proceeded to recount said memory but I wasn't really paying attention because Xander had nudged me, gesturing to the door and we took our leave silently. 

"How," he said when we were upstairs, "do you chop yourself in the neck with an axe?"

I had no answer and though the thought of it was improbable, it made no sense for the old man to lie. 

At that time, we had only been there for a week. I had no idea how strange the following days were going to become. 

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Next update: June 12, 2019 Wednesday