September
10
1723
The horse-drawn carriage stopped by an opening in the black, leafless trees. A man in a dark cloak and bowler hat stepped out and only turned back long enough to mutter a few words that sounded like, "Don't wait on me."
As if this is what he indeed said, the man on the seat shook the reins and the two black mares began moving, their hoofs click clocking back into the fog and shadows.
The man left by himself watched until the carriage was gone and then walked into the trees. Only the crescent moon allowed illumination through the skeleton branches, but it was not enough. The man stopped when he heard a noise; the beating wings of an owl as it took flight from one branch to another. The man strained to see the face of the pocket watch he pulled from his waistcoat's pocket. To him it appeared to read a few minutes beyond midnight.
Before he had time to look away, someone grabbed and slammed him to the tree trunk in which the owl was perched just branches above, and the suddenness scared it to yet another tree. It watched from its new branch as the man's pocket watch fell from his grasp, landing in the misty grass where the face collected dots of red.
From the distance, one in the streets of Torun, Poland could hear a scream.
YOU ARE READING
Monster
VampireSet in Victorian Poland is a tale about a stubborn young woman named Elsa whose father runs a society solely for vampyre hunting. Elsa does not believe in such tales, until she comes across a mysterious man at a ball interested in her mother's old p...
