Dawn crept into the streets of the town and painted the streets a rosy glow. Yana could see her breath fogging in the air as she walked towards the center of the town, where the bottle-kiln waited for another day of hard labour. The houses here were nicer than in the bad areas of town, but they were still pretty small and cramped. Rows and rows of identical brick houses; four houses joined onto another was a common sight. Yana kew that people who lived in these houses were called 'Working Class', and that the houses were often shared by several families at one time.

Yana made her way past these streets; where hungry dogs sat in the road, and tired-looking women washed clothes in water buckets by hand. Lots of small children came out of the houses as she past and joined her in walking to the bottle-kiln. She recognised most of them; they were her work colleages. Together, she and the other children kept the pottery factory ticking over; keeping machinery working; cleaning the chimneys; climbing into the pottery ovens to fetch out bowls and bricks that had fallen in too far.

She saw a new boy that hadn't been on the working team yesterday. He looked about five years old, probably the first time he had been sent out to work. Families started their children early around here, they needed to; as soon as a child could walk and talk and carry things then it was off to work to earn money for the family.

At least they have a family. thought Yana sadly.

She walked over to the new boy and spat on her hand, as was the custom. She held it out for the boy to do the same thing and shake it. He merely looked confused.

'Don't you know the kiln-children's shake?'

The boy shook his head.

She sighed 'You have a lot to learn kid. Just spit on your hand and shake mine.'

'Why?'

'Because. . . because. . .' Yana was flummoxed. She had no idea why, or when the custom had started.

'It seems unsanitary to me. 'Cleanliness is next to Godliness'' he recited. Yana stared. Who, in this part of town, was worried about being sanitary?

'And anyway' he continued 'I'm not allowed to touch girls; my mother said so'

'Why not, kid?'

'It's evil for a boy to touch a girl, even if he doesn't mean it. My mother doesn't even talk to men. Thats how sin entered the world; she says.'

Now Yana understood. He was obviously from one of those religious-nut families. She knew people did beleive these things, but Yana couldn't understand why. She didn't beleive in God. Where had God been when she was in trouble? Anyway, she thought, all religious people were either rich spoilt upper-class with anything they wanted; God was easy for them to beleive in, or they were some crazy nut-job living squalor, but convinced they were better than anyone else because they spouted quotes from their religious-text. Yanas conscious gave a guilty squirm at her thoughts. She remembered the Christians that had found her sleeping in the streets, in the great winter of '45, snow slowly piling on her. She had been about to give up and go to sleep when they had arrived; given her a blanket, and soup, to keep warm, and blessed her. If it wasn't for them, she probably would have been dead.

The boy was still looking at her.

'Whats your name kid?' she said, coming back to earth.

'Peter'

'Oh, OK'

They didn't speak again until they reached the gates of the Factory. Yana always looked up at the smoke billowing out out of the big chimney into the air. She liked to think it was the breath of some giant monster lying underneath the ground in slumber. The billowing and undulatiung motion of the smoke was kind of hypnotic. Yana felt soothed. When they reached the factory doors they were split up into teams to go to different parts of the factory. Today, Yana was put on chimmney sweeping. It was a job she hardly got to do, and it was hard, but she enjoyed it more than running the machines. There was less of a chance to cruch a leg and get horribly crippled. Yana knew someone that that had happened to. He had been oiling a mixing machine, used to mix the clay, when it had been turned on by a careless worker. The rotors had started turning, and before he could escape, he had been mixed in with the clay. It had been horrible. When they dragged him out, he looked like a clay model of a boy; a model that had been twisted and squashed. His arms had been mangled into different positions, and his leg had been bent in two places, at wrong angles.

Shuddering, Yana followed the other children to the bottle-kiln that needed sweeping. She was friendly with the other children who were working on her team, and soon they were laughing and joking with eachother as they swept the chimmney of the kiln.

The bricks of the wall and roof were hot from the last baking, and Yanas hands were blistering from the heat. The rope that held her to the roof was scratchy and kept getting in her way. She delicately sweeped the bricks infront of her, coughing as soot cascaded down on her, covering her with soot.

'Haha. Yana, you look like you've been struck by lightning!' shouted one of the boys on the other side of the kiln.

Yana grinned. Her usually blonde hair was stiff and grey with soot, and ash covered her face.

'I look like I've aged into an old woman, more like' she said.

The other chimmney sweeps laughed. One, a 10 year old girl girl called Emma, suddenly gasped, and Yana spun her head round, twisting her neck, expecting to see Emma falling to the floor. But, thank goodness, she wasn't.

'What was that for?' gasped the boy, 'I thought you were falling to your death at least'

Emma smiled. 'I just remembered something when you were talking about Yana looking like an old woman'

'What?'

Emma looked at the kiln roof. 'We're finished now aren't we? Come down and I'll tell you about it.'

Yana and four boys crowded around Emma in a huddle. They sat on the outside of the kiln, and she told her tale.

'I heard it from a girl my family shares a house with. She's a maid for one of the big rich people over the west side of town. So, she goes into the house of this old woman (thats what made me remember it), who lives alone, in a big old mansion. It's still dark early in the moring, and the maid is scared. See, the woman usually rings for assistance in getting out of bed, washing and dressing and such, right?-

They nodded.

- well, today she doesn't, and the maid gets worried about what has happened. She was old see, and she mighta died during the night. Anyway, the maid knocks, and goes into the room. She says the woman was dead alright. She was lying in bed, not breathing, so the maid takes the chance to take some things. She looks in the drawers and finds jewelry. -

Emma held up a finger, with a ring on it.

- She gave me this. Anyway, she opens the cupboard to look inside. And next thing she knows, she's been pushed to the floor hard, and a person jumps over her. She says he moved faster than what should be right, looked back at her, and jumped out the window.'

Silence greeted her story.

'She was probably lying' said one of the boys.

'Nuh-uh' pouted Emma 'She swore it was the truth. And anyway -

She leaned closer and whispered

- I'll tell you what. The doctors took the body, and you know what they found? The body had no blood in it to spill. All of it had been taken.'

She nodded significantly. The children all shared dark looks. There had been stories like this going round the town for months. Every few months a new person would be found dead, lying pale and cold in their bed. Their blood drained.

At first nobody had beleived, but soon, there were so many stories that at least part of it had to be true.

'I wonder who is doing it?' mused a boy.

Yana jumped as a smaller boy spoke behind me. It was Peter.

'It's not a who, it's a what. The thing that hunts the people is called a vampire. It is a demon from the devil himself and is preying on humans to punish us for our sins.'

The children all looked at him sceptically. Then turned away to discuss it. They had all heard of vampires. The spirits that sucked the soul out of peoples mouths when they were sleeping; could only come out at night; and were super quick. But nobody had ever seen one.

What ever it was that was doing these things; it was scaring half the town to bed in the nights.

The foreman suddenly shouted at them to get to work. They jumped, not wishing to feel the lash of his whip, and got to work.

Yana couldn't help thinking more about the vampire as she worked. Master of the night, she imagined herself as a vampire, leaping across the roofs of the town; faster than anybody could follow with their eye. Then she shuddered at the thought of sucking peoples souls out.

Sure, they were just a scary story, but vampires made for nice daydreams.