Mid 1712: Early Spring
The sky above Jack's head was growing darker as the minutes went by. It would be completely dark in an hour or two, and so he started to gather his things strewn around him. He pulled his brown cloak around his shoulders and tied the drawstrings, and then bent down to pick up his shepherds hook.
He had made it himself. The shepherd's hook was Jack's pride. Jack's father had died a few years back, only right after Jack was old enough to look after the sheep. A wolf or some other wild animal had killed his father and many of the sheep that he had been looking after that day. The staff was the last thing that Jack and his father had sat down to work together on. It was one of Jack's only reminders of him.
Jack's younger sister, Emma, doesn't remember their dad. And his mother is often kept busy with the family garden and making clothes and keeping the house clean and many, many other duties that she took on after Jack's father died, that she hardly has the time to mourn him. They all missed him, of course, but the harsh winters and the hardships that came with living in this "new world" often kept everyone so busy that there wasn't much time for personal feelings.
Sighing at his trail of thoughts, Jack shook himself from his stupor and walked around the small herd of sheep to get them traveling back home. Jack and the sheep had only been walking for a few minutes before he noticed someone in the distance. It looked like a person? Jack wasn't completely sure.
Jack continues to walk the sheep towards his home, and the person in the distance was coming closer and closer with each step. The person – a man? - was limping and was right next to the entrance to the trail in the woods that Jack would have to herd the sheep through.
The man had stopped moving now, and was resting against a tree next to the trail entrance, and Jack was growing more and more uneasy with every step he had to take. Jack could only see that his hair was long, greasy, and dark. His skin was an unearthly pale, and he seemed to be emaciated. The man's clothes hung in ragged strips around his body, and he wasn't wearing any shoes. Jack's uneasiness grew.
The sheep started acting strangely, almost skittish. Jack was worried that they would bolt and he would have to hunt them down.
Jack was only about a hundred feet from the man now, and the sheep were antsier than before. Jack paused as he felt a surge of unidentifiable and horrible feelings of pure fear. Jack watched in a panic as the man slowly lifted his head and stared at Jack. His face was… monstrous. There were black veins spreading away from his mouth and eyes, and his hands had inch long, sharp, nails. And his eyes, oh god his eyes. They were a shocking color of dark, blood red. They seemed to glow, and the man's body, which was tense and slowly moving away from the tree, seemed to scream that this was a predator, a hunter, a killer.
Jack couldn't move, and he just kept staring at the… monster. This wasn't a human. There was no way. No human looked like this. No human could move like that.
Before Jack could blink the man was suddenly right in front of him, and Jack could hear the sheep making scared noises as their hooves were hitting the ground in a sprint. Jack still couldn't move.
The monster slowly leaned towards Jack, and he could hear the thing… sniff? The monster's head backed away for a moment, and it flashed its long sharp teeth before Jack felt his head being pushed back.
Jack tried to fight back and scream as the monster's mouth found its way to his neck, but Jack still couldn't budge a muscle. Jack did manage to whimper when he felt sharp teeth puncture his skin, and god it hurt so much.
Jack's body almost immediately went numb everywhere except for where the... the thing's teeth were puncturing his skin. Jack was terrified as he came to the realization that this thing, this monster… it was a vampire.
This monster was a story told to kids so that they wouldn't stay out too late at night, and to not venture too far out into the woods. They were supposed to be nothing but tall tales though, not stories that actually held merit.
Jack's thoughts were turning sluggish, and he couldn't even feel the vampire's teeth at his neck anymore. His vision was going dark and the blood pulsing in his ears was slowing down. He could almost feel his heart slowing down, until he almost couldn't tell if it was even beating anymore.
Please. Please just let my family be okay without me. The last thing Jack saw before he fell unconscious was a pale face free of black, sickly veins, and a flash of red eyes.