You awaken in your lair. You sigh, and try to force your lids closed once more. It’s no use. Your mind is awake, yet again.
You push on the lid of your coffin and it swings open, revealing a less comforting shade of dark. You rub your face, dry and limp skin moving beneath your fingers like clay. Yet another night of devilish unlife.
You arise and exit out of your comfortable box, having engaged in blissful rest, passing the day, now viscerally feeling the need to rise and feed. You curse your lot, but you must continue the curse. A vague, ancient memory of stepping into cascading water washes over your gelatinous insides. You have no idea if it is your own forgotten habit rearing it’s head, some half-remembered dream reality, or simply a manifestation of the cruel world of the swine that you unfortunately inhabit this planet with, a collective thought, invading your mental fortress. But you resist it! That mundane life is not for you. Oh, no. Not tonight.
You grab your thick rimmed, plastic glasses from the nightstand. Regardless of your terrifying visage, you still need sight correction to stalk your prey. No matter your efforts to blend in, they still run. Why do the fleshbags quail in your presence and flee your gaze? What is it they can discern from your presence, no matter your efforts to conceal?
Oh right, you are a monster.
You make your way into another familiar haunt. There’s the icebox here. You open it mechanically, vacant eyes dreary to another period of dreaded wakefulness. Yet another night-dawn. Yet another obligation to feed.
You bend over, and release a dry grunt. The rigors of rest flaking off of you. Gratefully, no one would witness your shameful display here. No one to hear your weakness as you re-gather your strength. You push aside a few items, barely even registering their existence. Perhaps some kind of leftover, perhaps a moldy pack of cheese. You have no idea and you have no interest, besides. Who even put that putrescent tat here? Was it you of the past? Some intruder during the daytime? Who cares? Not you, and that is the truth.
You grab a carton and fumble absentmindedly with the top. The spoil inside has revealed itself. You drink deep.
Against your own will, your body ejaculates a gulp for air after you finish. Pathetic fleshing behavior, a remnant of your upbringing clinging pointlessly to your dark life. What a waste of energy. Truly, nothing is worse than reminds of the old times. Or, anything that reminds you of the mortal infestation, really. Breath. Urgh. Who needs it? The disgusting bastards out there, that’s who.
Regardless, you feel a modicum of energy radiate from esophageal tract to stomach to chest, and then outward into your limbs. Not to the tips of your fingers and toes and head, of course. Oh no, that would be for the people that are alive. No. You, instead, are animated by an evil necrotic power now, after the transformation. You blink off the unfortunate tatters of life clinging, and shake your diabolical head ever so slightly. Your thoughts turn to the precious night.
Several moments of blank thought later, you find yourself in front of a glass pane near the entrance to your lair. You peek around the window covers, never disturbing them so as to not be noticed by the sick and twisted outside world. There, the creatures out there. Teeming. This seems out of place, considering the mortal time. They are not ones to be attracted to the dark, unlike your kind.
“Shit!” you exclaim to the wonderful, dark embrace of your empty room. How could you forget? Or rather, how could you ever have allowed yourself to assume you would remember? It is mortals who track the changing of the seasons to closely, your kind is meant to be above such trifling matters! But alas, until they can be exterminated in full, you must, else you suffer consequences such as this. What a wrenched idiot you are, as always. You dart back from the window, distress arising within you at the thought of your sanctum under siege.
What do I do, what do I do… Satan smite them! you think as you pace back and forth erratically.
Seemingly, the creatures had kept their distance so far, but it was only a matter of time. Your wards were working, but you could feel their weakness. On days such as today, the teeming masses gained power as the night drags on. Given time, they would easily be bypassed.
These insidious freaks always find you eventually, no matter how far you flee or where hide. Crawling, tearing, ripping at your soul and your flesh, attempting to consume you, to slay you and grind you into nothingness! Yet still, they call you the monster, blind to their own mortal fetishes. Today, more than almost any other, is the worst for their sick, invasive tendencies.
All it takes is one accursed gobliney manling to muster some spat of courage in his wretched heart, egged on by his insipid little followers, and they’ll be lead to your doorstep in an instant. Perhaps you could fling the door open, revealing your mad demeanor, and they’d run? No, no, no! Such a tactic would only serve to make your problems worse. The armed goons in uniform that the humans rely upon, , will inevitably show up if you were so bold. The swine don’t know how to live without their ranchers, their protectors are their selfsame murderers come harvest.
Doubtless, the little brat would cry to his protective womb-tether. How pitiful, that the little cretins are incapable of heeding the consequences of their very own actions. No creature of the night would be caught alive relying on another so. What weakness.
Murder. It’s the only option then. It must be done quietly, however. The next man spawnling that dares to enter the sanctity of your property is doomed. That’s right, they will serve as the vessel for your righteous seethe. It’s been quite some time since you’ve fed on the living energy anyway. It’ll give you a thrill. Maybe. But how?
Spinning on your heel, you find your unlife returning to even your extremities, now. This time, with this dark impulse, the action is rejuvenating. Finally, a good night to be a dark one, after all this time. Yes, finally. Sweet revenge. Your mostly naked pale body shuffles with unholy ambition across the room, into the kitchen and out the other side, down the hall and… “EEP!” you startle and exclaim internally as your doorbell rings.
Shit, shit, shit. Not yet. Not now!
You scramble left, then right. What do you do? You are unprepared. You knew this was coming but this soon?! Your fingers fly with nervous energy, twiddling uselessly as your mind reels from the unexpected stimulus.
Finally, gathering a basic plan of action, you continue your journey back into the deep recesses of your lair, and grab the first piece of cloth that presents itself to you. Some long, black thing draped on your dresser. Did you wear this yesterday? Who knows, anymore. What even is yesterday. What is today. What is the difference to anyone, and why should anyone care. How could anyone care? Whatever. There’s an invasion to address.
You throw on the garment. Yes, this will do fine. It covers your wretched flesh adequately, and will serve it’s purpose. The humans may even think it ‘festive’. You cringe at this thought, and turn to the exit. Your newly donned cape swishes through the air you left vacant. Now, for the next problem. The real problem. The, uurgh, mortal problem.
These little thankless gremlins will be expecting things of you. Disgusting, wretched, twisted and evil! Perhaps your granary stores have something sate their all-consuming hunger. How dare they invade your space and demand gifts as their reward! Entitled scum, every one of them. The big ones, the little ones, all of them.
The in-betweens were the worst of them all. If you refuse to participate in their time wasting and invasion rituals, it was the in-betweens that break through the psychic wards you placed upon your sanctuary with intent to ruin your peace, perhaps even your property. Damn them all to hell, where Lord Satan will enact the rightful punishment for such slime blighting, as they do, this wasteful, hateful world. You exit the kitchen with a bowl of whatever tat and remainders you managed to gather from the pantry under duress.
You creep, silently, slowly, towards the door. This sacred monolith, the last bastion of defense that stands between you and the unholy earth-infestation and their sickening smallminded society with it’s extreme pressure to conform underlying all of it’s grotesque activity. You muffle your footsteps with the heel-toe stealth technique of your kind. Silently gliding, billowing clothes breaking your silhouette and hood masking your hideous, disfigured visage, you approach the door.
You place one evil eye up to the spyglass and confirm your worst fears. You sigh, once again. There was no getting out of this one. You must steel yourself for an encounter. Having forgot the date, you left the thrice-cursed porch light on, once again!
Last year’s oaths were in vain, it seems. You silently pledge your devotion to darkness this time next year. You shan’t forget again. You mustn’t! Every contact with these damnable sheeple threatens to tear your precious, occult reality away from you if a single wrong move is made.
One hand clutches the large, plastic orange bowl while you fumble with the locks using your other rotten appendage. There was no more benefit to subterfuge, the freaks were just milling about on your porch, gazing expectantly from the door to your abode and then to each other.
You unlatch the chain. You flip the metal brace. You lift up and slide the latch. The deadbolt is loosed. You ready the knob. You pause, just for a moment, the make sure the little monsters hadn’t left yet. Someone where in the recesses of your dark mind, hope still springs. Perhaps the rumors that were undoubtedly spread in the neighborhood about you had dawned on them, just now, after detecting the subtle and sweet scent of fear on one of their peers, and they had lost their misplaced courage and broke ranks.
No. No, of course not. They were still there. More expectant than ever. Curses! Hope be damned!
You turn the doorknob, every fiber of your unholy being raging against the progress towards the inevitable conflict. Something deep inside that you would rather deny, something worse than even yourself pulls you forward ever still and you are compelled to open the door.
“Trick or Treat!” screamed the shrill voices of the disorganized gaggle of kneehigh man-spawn gathered on your private property. This behavior betrays that they have no idea of the danger they were in. A snap of the wrist, a single spasm of your muscle, imbued with the power of evil, is all it would take to end them and this entire charade of an existence.
With that thought you take a small measure of pleasure, which enables a grimace to spread across your face. They had not, apparently, noticed that your body is not simply one of make-up and illusion. This body they perceive and must feel arcane terror emanating from, tugging at the pit of their soul, is simply your every day. Or, night. Your true self, regardless. The unbridled horror of your existence, on full display. Any other day, they would scream and run. But the intoxicating effect of age-old artifice and traditional pagan holyday observance deceives these fragile animals and their breeding keepers to feel safe, even as they approach the butcher.
Pasting the insidious grimace on your face that you use for their kind, you speak your truth. “My, look at all the little monsters we have here!” you say. You imagine the sight the little goblins must be drinking in, with your fanged teeth flashing in the moonlight and corrupt garments issuing a rightful air of import.
Their broodmother lurks just behind your overgrown brush defense line, doubtless judging and ready to pounce with her disgusting protective breeding instincts fueling her at a moment’s notice. She makes eye contact with you. She bears her teeth in the primate ritual these mortals pretend to be blind to the meaning of, only partially hiding her animalistic nature. Maybe we weren’t so different after all.
But no matter. You must maintain the act! Else, the emboldened grand wizards of these creatures, drunk on heroic narratives, will show up and this relatively tolerable human interaction will be the least of your worries. You nod to her, and bend down to allow the tiny humans to access your treasures.
Your back cracks. Your shoulders ache. The distended muscles in your face threaten to fail any moment now. The little wretches approach and swarm your position. You extend your torturous incline, as you sit above them on the unhallowed foundation of your beloved lair. This pain, on their behalf, will be noted, humans.
The grubby hands of these scamps shoot out from under multicolored fabrics like the onslaught of bats exiting a cave-mouth at sunset. They create strange noises as well, not unlike those same bats. Tittering, giggles, and instantaneous squabbling as each of them activate their primeval instincts in response to what they value being presented to them, their base desires to have the best pick of the spoils flowing through their tiny frames, uninhibited by social conditioning. The veil of society falls off tonight. Disgusting gremlins.
For a brief moment, you find your grimace a little less forced as their darkest impulses present themselves and you see the faintest glimmer of yourself and your fellow dark companions. Horrible, these things are most certainly, yet extremely valuable for their insight into the Devilish core of every one of those surface dwellers that they try oh-so-hard to deny.
“What is this?” mumbles the tiny lips of one of these diminutive creatures. The garish garb and panted face indicates this manling is portraying a supposed joy-bringer the humans seem to enjoy and fear in equal measure. He denies the validity of your offering? You squint, to see what his shrunken hand with a stubby finger is jamming itself at.
“Candy,” you reply.
Is this not what they desire from you? An offering of sweets to offset the odorous presence of such a creature in their neighborhood, once a year? The ritual is complete, is it not? In their primitive transactional brains, this was a way to rectify the vacuous life of one such as myself that sucks the lifeblood out of their simple suburban toil. These monkeys always demand to be paid for any minor inconvenience or slight deviation from their expectations. The entitled bastards, one and all.
The small man-spawn demonstrates admirable audacity as it’s face scrunches and seems to accept this less-than-ideal fate. Good, good. Life will disappoint you, little one, and it’s best you learn that now. Perhaps you will think twice the next time you decide to mindlessly follow your broodmother out into the night, tagging behind them as the tribe invades another’s serenity. Almost certainly not, however.
As if practiced at some kind of cult meeting, all of them turn their back on you in unison. The transaction is complete in true, and you allow your unnatural mask to fall back to it’s resting state. Finally.
Your excitement grows as you are met with the reality of an obligation fulfilled. Peace will be returning to your kingdom tantalizingly soon. The creator of these tiny creatures seems to have some kind of desire to ensure you return to your prison, and attempts to make eye contact as you dart back behind the safety of your wooden shield. The temptation to slam the portal closed threatens to overtake you, but you manage to summon the requisite composure required around these judgemental flesh bags and maintain control.
You release all of your tension and set the orange bowl on the wooden construct next to the door. Why was that little twerp so rude?
“Candy,” you repeat to yourself. “What in the seven layers of hell did he expect from me, anyway?”
You gaze into the bowl. A few individually wrapped packages stare back at you, no two the same. Something red, something blue, something white. The remnants of your life, among the last of your earthly possessions, given freely, but under duress, to the invading horde. What a horrible day. What kind of weak, shackled subservience was this, for a monster such as yourself? Besides, some of these were your favorite. If they don’t want them, so be it.
You reach your twisted hand with it’s engorged knuckles into the bowl and find one such target. A squishy little morsel, imported from far-away lands in a fruitless attempt to sate your twisted desire to escape the torture of daily existence in this horrible little village. You know that, of course, every place on this murky globe of ours is horrid, but there were at least a few cultures that knew how to create acceptable confectioneries. You pop the gummy into your mouth and the familiar flavor of kiwi floods your malformed nostril caves within your gaping maw. That child would never know what they were missing! You flip off your porch light, regardless. More for you.