Mesmerized | ✓

Epilogue

June 2, 2019. New York Times

An elaborate hoax orchestrated by a small town journalist?

In recent days have appeared a series of articles titled "The Vanquish of the Stonetown Vampire" in the Stonetown online gazette published by a local reporter, Mark Webber. The man claims to have "slayed" a vampire wreaking havoc upon the town and blames him for all of the recent deaths and disappearances. To prove his story along with his articles he posted a few pictures and videos, as well as an interview with a Stonetown Community College student, Carl Murphy, who allegedly have been personally inflicted with the monster.

"He used his charm on me and made me fall in love with him." Murphy claims. "The whole town was on lockdown and he organized a prom that everyone attended in the midst of it all. And when I say everyone, I really mean everyone. At least half of the citizens were there." There is a serjes of pictures and films illustrating the dancing people but as most of them had masks I couldn't get to all of them and the ones I did manage to get in contact with, denied the allegations that any prom at all had taken place and the pictures must have been altered.

We brought in the man himself, Mark Webber, for a special interview and he was more than willing to accept the invitation but the things he said were incoherent and nonsensical at best. "There really was a vampire." Webber says. "Just look at all of those bodies with the bite marks." He shows me two graphic photographs, one of a young girl and another of an older man. Indeed, both of them have bite marks around the neck area.

That could give Webber's story some credibility but my sources have revealed that around the time of the murders there have been three wolves accidentally released from the local zoo which are yet to be retrieved. Faced with those facts, Mark showed another photograph of Murphy's parents laying on the bed, both drenched in blood and unconscious. That does look bad, I gave him that but when asked directly about being bitten by a vampire Karen and Robert openly laughed and claimed that they would have remembered something as extraordinary as that and their injuries were simply a result of a robbery.

Robin Murphy and Candace Brooke are another two girls who support Webber's story but they fail to show any proof. Robin, Carl's sixteen year old sister, claims that just like her brother she was infatuated with the vampire to the point of insanity while Candace, Carl's friend from college, says that she was the only one resistant to his charms. She also says that they almost managed take him down.

When I asked them what, in the end, happened to that "vampire" the only answer they gave me was that "he dissolved into sea foam". And to that I said, "Come up with a more plausible story next time if you are so desperate to become famous."

So fear not leaving your house. No Stonetown vampire is waiting to sink his fangs into your neck tonight.

A/N: Thank you to all of those who read, voted and commented. I'm grateful for giving my story a shot. I really hope you liked it because I think this is the first story that is not fanfiction that I truly had fun writing. I have to admit that I was heavily inspired to write this book by a Polish movie "The Lure" which I highly recommend if you want to stay in the world of mermaids that are also sort of vampires.

Thank you one more time and see you next time :)