March 1st, 1790, 9:03 pm, Batsto Village, New Jersey
Thomas Feeney had been stumped that evening. It was the end of his last day to hunt for raccoons and possums in the forest which stood just to the west of the village. So far, he had been lucky to bag two possums and no raccoons over the course of seven days. It was one of the worst hunts he had experienced in his fifty-two year long life.
He was no amateur hunter. It was his twenty-eighth time hunting in these woods, and he was happy he could get back to engaging in the seasonal ventures that all hunters enjoyed. With the war having been over years ago, and with a stable government under Washington, things were looking up for everyone in the former thirteen colonies.
It was a shame such fortunes did not trickle to Thomas. He had resigned himself to giving up on his last day before the ideal time for fur trapping or buck hunting would be suspended for months.
"Damned little beasts." He cursed. "Whit's changed this year? Not like most people dare ta go huntin' in these woods."
Thomas was aware of the stories of the beast that stalked the Pine Barrens. It was all hogwash from his point of view. In nearly thirty years of his life in Burlington County, he had never seen much worse than a bear or two. The only good such fables did for him was that there was practically no competition in his neck of the woods, especially during the winter. This monopoly of hunting in the pine forest did him no special favors this season.
"Bloody raccoons. At least I gotta pair o' possums." His Irish accent dripped into his monologue as he trundled towards the outskirts of Batsto. It was time to turn in his meager catches for a paltry sum of money. The moon was neither full nor new, but the sky was clear for a late winter day, so there was some illumination. The dirt roads leading towards the local tradesman and hardware store were easily spotted in the lunar light.
Batsto had been where his wife's great great great grandparents had grown up in. When he arrived at the colonies, he found the village to be an ideal spot to make a new life for himself. He had enjoyed his newfound opportunities in a place that was neither engulfed in religious conflict, nor subject to the heavy hand of a royal army. Batsto was not a major commercial port, nor was it utterly removed from human civilization.
The village suited Thomas' purposes just fine. Unfortunately, it was not always a smooth going existence in America.
As one of the few Irishmen to convert to Protestantism, he had received grief from other Irishmen for betraying what they believed to be the true faith. Meanwhile, many of the locals, at least before the war, were not entirely convinced he was someone who had broken ranks with the Bishop of Rome.
Thomas Feeney cared little for the opinions of others. He had already put his life on the line for the Revolution by aiding the Continental Army with rations and intelligence gathering. He'd be damned if he was to be painted as some kind of foreign invader for his trouble. As it stood, no one complained about his residence, and he had raised a few children and gained good friends and neighbors along the way.
Soon, Thomas saw there were two people in the street. One of them looked to be well dressed for the season, the other was not. The thickly dressed man in dark clothing was lying prone on the ground. He was not moving, and a puddle of some kind of liquid was pooling to the left of his neck.
Hunched over the motionless body was a younger man with a cotton shirt and dark trousers. His head, covered with messy brown locks, was very close to the exposed neck of the man on the ground. A strange, slurping sound could barely be heard over the gentle wind sweeping through the periphery of the small town.
Thomas was confused at the scene. Did the man on the ground trip and knock himself unconscious?
"Hey! Whit's happened? Does that man need help?"
The young man lifted his head suddenly, his face not facing Mr. Feeney. The spry stranger turned towards the middle aged hunter. His face, sculpted like a Grecian statue and pale as bleached bone, had two cold, pale blue eyes with black pupils that pierced Thomas' soul. His teeth, sharper than a wolf's were stained with blood, which dripped down the youth's chin.
"Wha-" Thomas Feeney immediately began backpedaling. His experience in the Revolution taught him to never stay still in a direct confrontation with something that was more dangerous than himself. Dropping the bag with the possum hides, he instinctively grabbed his hunting rifle off of his shoulder and began to run back the way he came from with his life.
"Help! Monster! Monster!" He wailed in terror.
The pale young man with fangs let out a growl akin to a rabid dog and began to run after Feeney with superhuman speed.
For minutes that turned into what seemed like hours, Thomas Feeney ran as fast as his aging legs could carry him. It was a miracle there was enough moonlight to see the ground before him. He knew the woods like the back of his hand ever since he arrived during the war with the French and their Indian allies. It seemed to be the only thing keeping him out of the literal jaws of death.
A perverse chill engulfed his center as he heard the sound of branches creaking violently with the exertions of a creature using the lower canopy to move through the woods behind him. He knew this was no mere boy. It was some demon crept from the lowest womb imaginable, and he was the poor bastard unlucky enough to be in its pursuit.
The skinny monster tailing him preferred taking an arboreal path. His clawed hands let him grip branches with ease, allowing him to leap from tree to tree. Soon he found an angle to leap upon his tiring prey.
Thomas turned on a dime, his heart pounding in his ears as he heard a blood curdling hiss from above him. He aimed his rifle up in the general direction of his pursuer as the boy leapt at his position from more than thirty feet above him. The long rifle let out a blast, the flash of the gunpowder being sparked highlighted the young man's sudden look of shock. The sound of the lead ball striking flesh preceded the boy collapsing face first onto the cold, acidic soil.
Thomas, gasping in fatigue, was almost too fearful to approach the body to see if he truly killed whatever hellish boy tried to nurse him. His rifle's one shot spent, he held it out with the barrel pointed like a spear.
"Whit the hell were ya?" After a moment, Thomas, with much trepidation, prodded the still body.
He was suddenly swept off his feet as the boy sprung back to life with a growl.
Thomas could only cry out in shock as he was suddenly on his back. The boy was up on his feet, a murderous rage burning in his soulless gaze. A black, circular mark and a tiny stream of blood stained his right shoulder; it was the only evidence that the bullet found its mark.
As the fanged teen stomped over his quarry, Thomas tried in vain to poke with force into his attacker's stomach to keep him at bay. The barrel of the gun was grabbed by a clawed, undead hand and Thomas found his only armament thrown with reckless prejudice to the left side.
With a satisfied sneer, the teenager hunched over Feeney's chest in an inhuman position, much to his prey's terrified protest.
"No, no, nooo!" Thomas shrieked in desperation.
The teen opened his jaws as wide as a python's, his eyes shining red as blood. He readied to bite the helpless man's neck. The pearly white fangs in his hellish maw momentarily glistened in the light of the half moon.
What happened next, Thomas Feeney was unsure of. He didn't see the next sequence of events. Rather, he heard and felt what transpired in the span of a handful of seconds.
A dark form whooshed over his helpless form and the fanged fiend who wished to kill him. It was clear his attacker did not expect the interference. A snarl of what he assumed was surprise was all he heard of the blood sucking assailant. He turned his head to the left to follow where his attacker had been forcefully spirited away, and nearly fainted at what he saw.
For a frightening moment, the moonlight was cast upon a pair of large, leathery wings that were as black as pitch. They flapped loudly, with terrible force and power, making two wing beats before whatever they extended from disappeared in the overgrowth of the pines. All that was left was a spine chilling silence.
Thomas, his face white as chalk, could only stare on in dread and bewilderment.
'Whit in God's precious name was that?!' He thought frantically.
He was soon shocked out of his senseless fright by the realization that he needed to get home before another monster decided to assault him. Looking about in increasing agitation, he found his discarded long rifle and ran as fast as his legs could carry him back to Batsto Village.
As he returned home to alert the night watch, he swore to never go into the forest at night ever again.
The pale monster struggled and hissed fiercely as it's torso was gripped within the arms of something powerful. He could barely crane his head to see that his newfound attacker sported large, bat like wings. In vain, he tried to use his limbs to beat on the arms wrapped around him with all of his might, but to no avail.
Suddenly, the bloodthirsty youth found that his captor was looping upside down. Momentarily disoriented, he was unceremoniously dropped from the height of the tallest pines. With a bark of shock, he twisted about desperately in the air before landing with a force that would kill a mortal man.
His back sore, he was further stunned by the sensation of a man hunching over his bruised form in a manner similar to how he had tried to entrap the old man he sought to kill. The difference was that a hand was also grabbing him by the throat. It was not a grip that could crush his windpipe or prevent him from respirating. It was meant to simply restrain his head. Blinking the pain away, he looked up to see the man who dared to interrupt his hunt.
Looking down at him with an emerald, coercive glare was a pale faced, black haired man who looked just a few years older than him. He was wearing a nondescript attire like any other man who lived in the former colonies. His heavy brown winter coat lied atop a black waistcoat. Aside from his cravat, everything from the tricorne hat on his head to his stockings was black as the shadows that currently painted the woods.
The fanged young man silently swore that he would not let himself be looked down upon by some human protecting wretch who could fly.
Benjamin knew from the moment he smelled human blood from miles away that something wrong had happened in Batsto. It was one of the villages around Burlington County where he found work providing carpentry services and odd jobs for the locals. When he found the eldest member of the Feeney family about to have his throat ripped out by a man who looked as if he had emerged from a fresh coffin, he instinctively intervened.
It was clear the young man before him was not a human. When he managed to get a closer look at the sharp teeth, the claws, and the pallor of his complexion, he realized what he was looking at.
"A vampire, eh? Can't say I've ever met a vampire before." He said as if he were casually speaking with a friendly stranger.
He was aware of what vampires were. When he was still Statera Haagenti's Queen in training, he had been given a plethora of lessons on the various beasts and creatures that existed throughout the supernatural world, from dragons to werewolves. Many of these lessons detailed the powers and physical capabilities of these creatures. More importantly, as instructed by his master personally, he was to memorize the weaknesses of every creature big and small not known to most mortal men.
This sharp toothed man had all of the characteristics of a vampire. He had fangs as strong as steel, superhuman strength and agility, the ability to heal from most wounds, a corpse like appearance, and a thirst for human blood.
This was a consummate, apex predator of the supernatural kind, and it had dared to enter his unofficial territory.
However, even predators can be hunted, and vampires had Beverly well known weaknesses. That being said, Benjamin didn't want to kill this vampire. Yet. He needed to know what this creature's endgame was. It was difficult to believe this monster had come all the way to an innocent village in southern New Jersey for the sake of blood alone.
There had to be some ulterior motive.
The vampire growled deeply in his throat, making Benjamin feel the vocalization beneath his grip. "What the hell are you?" He asked resentfully in a high, cold voice.
For a time, no answer was given. The thought stewed in Benjamin's head for a moment. Then, wordlessly, a pair of wings burst from his back, albeit without destroying the fabric of his coat or linen shirt. This pair of wings was much more bat-like than most conventional Devils. Their wings were more skeletal in nature; the wings this Devil bore had prominent webbing between the digits of each limb.
"Devil." Benjamin answered simply. His voice was baritone and hard-edged, as if expecting some form of treachery from his newly found prisoner. "Now, I'll be asking the questions from now on." The wings retracted with a soft whoosh.
The vampire snarled hatefully. He fiercely clawed at the arm that held his neck. Although his talons easily tore through the sleeves of Benjamin's clothing, the Devil did not even flinch. Instead, his eyes leered further.
Using his spare left hand, Benjamin jerked one of the vampire's hands off of his arm and pressed it firmly to the ground off to the side. The vampire was surprised to feel his wrist becoming dramatically colder. His eyes raced to his right to see that his arm was now frozen to the soil in a circular cap of ice. His exertions to break loose were for naught.
Soon, his other limb was similarly restrained. The vampire could only grunt and hiss impudently at his demonic captor.
Benjamin glanced down at his arm. The vampire's claws had not broken his skin, but he would need to sew his clothing together after this incident. "You just tore up my best winter coat. Rude." He slapped the vampire with his right hand, leaving a dark bruise that covered the top of the bloodsucker's cheek.
Never before had the vampire been struck by someone. A fresh hatred began to boil in his chest, right where his heart, ever hungry for the blood of mortal men, was located.
"Now," Benjamin repeated, placing his right hand back onto the vampire's neck, "who are you? Why did you come here? Were you sent by some vampire clan, thinking you could have a shot at killing me? Or maybe you're just some witless hire by the Grigori? Those Fallen fools sure wasted good money on you if that is the case."
The vampire, insulted, spat at Benjamin's face. The Devil simply wiped his complexion clean, and brandished an extended forefinger. A magic circle, no bigger than one of the buttons on his waistcoat, cast forth a little flame. The vampire soon found himself distressed as Benjamin slowly and purposefully pressed the little flame to his bloodsucking hostage's forehead. The undead life drainer let out a high-pitched, very human scream of pain. Five seconds later, he was left huffing in the cool night air in agony. The vampire tried to stop himself from giving his captor the satisfaction of having inflicted such torment onto him.
"Again, rude." Benjamin chided with deathly calmness.
The vampire glared up once again. He almost wanted to spit at his captor a second time, but restrained himself. The fire pressed against his skull was hotter than any normal flame he had seen or felt from a distance.
"I'll ask again. Who are you? Where do you come from? Did anyone send you?"
"Go to hell." The vampire growled out. His cheek was now almost fully healed from the slap Benjamin gave him. The burn mark on his forehead was taking its time to recover.
"Already been there." Benjamin responded smoothly. He conjured the flame on the pointer finger on his left hand again. This time, he lightly dragged it down the bridge of the vampire's nose.
"Argh!" The vampire tried violently to wrest his head forward. He wished he could rip this Devil's throat open and guzzle his blood, but the hand on his own neck held firm.
"A third time then." Benjamin said. "Who are you? Where are you from? Did someone send you? If you don't answer me, I'll just break each and every one of your prickly little teeth. After that, good luck with gumming people to death."
The vampire let a moment of actual fear wash over his hateful state. "Steven." He let out begrudgingly. "Steven Alfort. Nobody sent me. I'm from Dillsboro."
Benjamin merely hummed in response. He was unfamiliar with any villages or townships with that name in New Jersey. "Alright, Mr. Alfort. Where is Dillsboro? Virginia? Maybe Georgia?"
"North Carolina." He growled out.
"Okay... Now, why would a vampire from North Carolina head all the way to my territory hundreds of miles away? Surely you aren't here for some special blood source, unless the poor folks down in the Carolinas weren't succulent enough for you."
"I was escaping, at first." Steven replied, as the places where his flesh had been scorched started to not hurt as badly.
"From whom?"
"The bastards that killed my parents!" He yelled furiously.
"Let me guess. They were killing the townspeople."
"We had settled on the banks of the Tuckasegee River. My father and mother built that house with their own hands. Father played the part of a doctor, and mother a normal, doting wife. Yes, we drained the fools in that town."
"I'm guessing some of those victims dared to go to your old man for medicinal purposes. It drew attention to you lot."
"They suspected after a time. Mother got too greedy once. She drained the blood of a young couple in their own homes. She was witnessed leaving their house by two young men. That was the last straw for the walking meat bags of Dillsboro." Steven's voice darkened with resentment as he repeated the name of the town of his origins.
Benjamin smirked, unmoved by how the story was turning. "I suppose they put down your folks like the rabid animals they were."
"They dragged them from where they slept and shot them through their hearts!" Tears began steaming from the young vampire's eyes. "They then cut their heads off and left them in the house as it was burned down. I had heard of their plan to attack late at night and tried to alert my parents, but they surrounded the house the night before they killed them. I watched my mother and father get slain by those filthy humans!"
"Well boo hoo." Benjamin mocked. "Humans don't like being hunted. I suppose that leaves why you've come all the way up to New Jersey."
Steven huffed in displeasure, not entirely sure whether to tell the Devil his plan. Unfortunately, he was at the mercy of his demonic adversary. "I fled the town. I knew our roots traced back to England, so I wanted a guaranteed trip to Great Britain from Canada. I figured I'd sustain myself with some hapless humans along the way. Then you showed up, you human protecting bastard." He tried chomping at Benjamin again, to no effect.
Benjamin realized just who Steven was. When whispers came into the nearby villages that a few people had been murdered from places south of Burlington County, he was blamed, albeit falsely, for these deaths. This became an accusation that led to much debate amongst citizens who believed in his existence as the terror of the Pine Barrens and those who did not.
This was because word passed that a lengthy string of grisly murders had been occurring two years before they arrived onto the coastal plains of New Jersey. This was in contention with the narrative that the Leeds' Devil was now seeking the blood of innocent citizens. The bodies of ordinary people with their throats torn open stretched from as far south as the French Broad River to as far north as the shorelines around Delaware Bay.
The killer had never been caught until now. Benjamin was staring into the eyes of a man who had murdered dozens, if not hundreds of people all to satisfy his literal blood lust. Most inconveniently, Steven had brought his infamous body count all the way to Burlington County.
There was no sympathy in Benjamin's eyes. "Your folks got what they deserved. It was just a shame the townsfolk of Dillsboro missed their vicious little brat."
Steven leered up at his captor again. "What about what you deserve, Devil? You are no better than me. You deal with men's souls, I drink their blood. We both need humans to survive. Does it matter which monster they fall victim to?" His pale lips made a sneer and his fangs shined almost unnaturally in the moonlight.
For a moment, Benjamin absorbed what the vampire said to him. Then he gave a contemptible smile and an amused chuckle. "You see a pair of oversized bat wings, and you think you can decipher a man's secrets and history because of it?"
Steven Alfort looked increasingly confused at Benjamin's response.
"There's actually a stark difference between you and me. I don't need souls to survive. All I ever need is money. Money is quite useful if you want to buy things, after all. I don't need to hurt or exploit humans to get money, because it's in my best interest to either perform valuable services to them or leave them alone."
A vindictive hiss rose up from the vampire's throat.
"I'll admit, it can be a little fun to scare the piss out of others with my... abilities, but aside from that, I don't gain anything but bad attention from... vested powers if I go around slaying humans for no good reason."
Benjamin casually brushed some chestnut locks off of Steven's forehead. As he expected, it antagonized the bloodsucker into trying to bite at his extended left hand, again. However, as before, Steven's fangs were unable to reach their target.
"Speaking of which, you brought some very unwanted attention to my little corner of the world. They're talking in all of the villages around here that I'm the one killing their friends and neighbors."
Benjamin leaned forwards slightly, his green eyes turning a simmering shade of orange. "That won't do. If people start hearing that a Devil is draining people of their blood, it's liable to draw exorcists to my home, if not worse. You have to be stopped, for my sake."
Steven snarled in distaste. "So what, you're going to hand me to the authorities? Do you think I can't play the part of an innocent young man?"
"Well, first of all, you have one living witness. I stopped you from making a meal of him, son."
Steven's cold eyes widened.
"Of course, if you were an ordinary person, I would be willing to hand you in. I'm sure there'd be a nice bounty to bring a bastard like you before a judge. And who would believe your word that the Leeds Devil himself handed you over to the local militia to await justice?" Benjamin gave a glare that was both soft and without charity. "But not this time."
Steven's attempt to ask what the Devil meant was stifled when the grip on his neck was switched from Benjamin's right hand to the left hand. The exchanged clutch suddenly tightened on his throat.
Benjamin began to stand up, and the bloodsucker in his grasp was plucked up from lying on his back. Steven, his hands still frozen but no longer stuck to the ground, used whatever strength he had to try to bat Benjamin's hand off of him. Nothing he did even made the Devil flinch.
"I intend to end this little journey of yours once and for all." Without another word spoken, Benjamin slowly drew up his empty right hand and clenched a fist. It was launched straight at the vampire.
A wet crunch echoed through the clearing. Benjamin's fist easily tore through muscle and bone, embedding into the chest cavity of his fanged victim. A second later, a fist sized organ covered in blood vessels and sporting severed tube-like structures was plucked out of Steven's chest. The vampire's last moments were spent looking at the heart he had hungrily fed for the past two years. Before the life left his eyes, he heard Benjamin make a parting comment.
"So you have a heart. I didn't think vampires really had them."
The heart, still beating, was suddenly engulfed from its apex to its brachiocephalic trunk in Hellfire. It turned to ash in a matter of seconds in the palm of Benjamin's hand. As the blackened flakes blew away with a soft gust of wind, Steven's corpse was dropped callously onto the ground.
A stillness fell over the forest, as if the trees themselves were too shocked by the scene to even rustle with indifference. Benjamin looked about the clearing, before his gaze fell upon his right hand. Some of the blood had managed to trickle onto his sleeve. He'd have to wash this shirt and get a change in linens on top of the patch job he would need for his coat. Sighing, he glanced down onto the body of his slain adversary.
'I suppose I can't be too careful about drawing attention after the fact.' Taking off his coat and drawing his stained sleeve back up his arm, he summoned power into his right hand. What appeared to be a gauntlet made entirely of black flames engulfed the front most part of his forearm and hand. The shadows summoned forth drew into an extension of Benjamin's extremity, ending in five talons that stretched six inches long.
Kneeling down, he swiped the shadow claw at Steven Alfort'a exposed neck. The sound of flesh and vertebrae being rent by something sharp broke the quiet ambience of the night. In a single slash, the vampire's severed head rolled slightly away from its owner's body. It was soon grabbed up and placed onto Steven's mutilated chest, like a depraved bouquet at a funeral.
His eyes slightly glowing orange, Benjamin inhaled a deep breath before exhaling a thin stream of Hellfire. Within seconds, the body of the man who had killed and drained the life blood of so many innocents was consumed utterly by demonic flames that could scorch bone like wood and melt stone like tallow. As the smoke rose into the night sky, the conjuror of the hellish fire sought to erase any evidence of the killing.
It was time to leave the scene as unassuming as possible come the dawn.
The next day... 4:40 pm
Thomas had endured perhaps the most exhausting day of his life. First, he had to corroborate as an eyewitness for the murder of George Calloway, a fellow fur trapper that had been passing through Batsto to do what Thomas sought to do yesterday evening: sell the wares of his fruitful hunting.
The following search around the village to capture Calloway's depressed murderer turned up nothing. As such, when morning came messages were sent to the surrounding villages of what had transpired during the night.
Secondly, with some convincing from his eldest son, Thomas reported what he experienced last night to the head of the village's night watch. Needless to say, the account he gave them raised a few eyebrows. It was somewhat known that Thomas was a skeptic of the existence of the Leeds Devil, so to have such a sudden reversal left many who heard his testimony feeling nonplussed. This had invited criticism and even light mockery, as he and his eldest son Joshua experienced at the local tavern.
They had sat themselves down and asked for some ale to ease their stress. One man by the name of Markus decided to accost the two. Broad shouldered and dark haired, he approached them with a sneer in his green eyes.
"Well, well, well... look at this, gentlemen. A true believer of the Leeds Monster has come forth." Markus was even more disbelieving in the idea of a chimeric horror in the woods than even Thomas. The two men also had a small rivalry in the field of deer hunting, so any chance to make the other look like a fool was often exploited by Markus.
Thomas frowned resentfully, but decided not to take the bait. "You didn't see what I saw that night. If you did, you'd 'ave pissed yerself and begged God to spare you from such terror."
"You can try lying, Tommy old boy, but you can't lie to me. A monster that nobody saw but you? What's to say you haven't gone mad after all these years of being a shit hunter out in those woods."
Thomas growled, rising to his feet and clenching a fist.
"Don't take the bait, Dad." Joshua intervened, stepping between them. "Markus is just a sloppy drunk with a penchant for using poison rather than his guns to do the killing for him."
"Hey that's a damn lie!" Markus tried to stomp over to the young man who insulted him when two men grabbed him by his arms to prevent a fight from starting.
"Enough." William, the tavern owner, raised his voice. The echo of his baritone speech stopped the hostility from escalating any further. "Any man who so much as throws a fist will be banned for a whole year."
Markus left the tavern after that remark, though not without muttering that the "Irish fool" had lost his mind.
"Thanks, Will." Joshua thanked him.
"The warning stands for anyone, including your old man. Don't let his temper get the better of him."
Thomas sighed heavily as he took a long swig of the mug of ale in his hand. "I would not be so bloody angry if I had gotten some sleep last night. I swear, what I saw and heard will haunt me until I'm finally dead and buried."
William began to clean a glass as he pressed Thomas further for details. "Are you sure that you saw something with big bat wings?"
"Like I said to Arthur, I got pounced on by some bloodthirsty lad with big, bloody fangs." Thomas responded, trying not to sound or act agitated. "Then somethin' with big, black, leathery wings swooped down and took him off me. They flew off into the damned forest, and I lived to see the next morn'."
"I'm telling you Dad. The Leeds Monster saved you!" Joshua insisted heartily.
"Son..." Thomas groaned lightly.
"Saved him?" Another man, named Christopher asked incredulously. "The monster doesn't care for mortal men being in peril. The Devil probably just wanted to cut down on any competition in its forest."
There was some agreement amongst those in the tavern. The suggestion that a creature as terrifying as the one claimed to stalk the Pine Barrens could ever be a savior of any kind was laughable.
"Well, I can't tell any of you what Thomas saw last night, because only he saw what he saw last night." A tall, blond haired gentleman by the name of David stepped forth, placing a warm hand on Thomas' back. "But I'll swear on it that he is an honest man. He's a patriot with no reason to exaggerate or tell petty fibs out of nowhere. I think there was some truth in what he experienced that night, and for that, I'm thankful to the good Lord that Thomas is safe and sound amongst us today."
A second round of concurrence and even some mild cheering rose up in the building. Thomas was reasonably well respected for the part he played during the Revolution. It had helped to earn the trust of many members of the village.
"I just pray that I'll never have an encounter like that again." Thomas went back to drinking, wanting to put the matter to rest for good.
He did not notice that the handyman who often visited Batsto was looking at him with mild interest. Giving a light smile at the man's desire for privacy and discretion, Benjamin took a note to make sure not to scare Thomas Feeney if he should encounter him outside of his mundane realm of work. Putting a patched up coat over a fresh linen shirt, he finished his drink of whiskey and left the tavern with a glint in his sickly emerald eyes.
The tavern, with all of its warmth and sense of neighborly camaraderie, was left behind to the lowering Sun, and the dark Pine Barrens that beckoned him home.
I wanted to give another thank you to anyone who has been reading my various chapters and one-shots. This particular story was inspired by a video of all things.
Bedtime Stories is a YouTube Channel that tells of a wide variety of mysteries ranging from UFO sightings to strange deaths, and of course, cryptids.
This is inspired from one such story from a video called America's Vampires. I highly recommend watching the video on YouTube to get a better idea of what inspired me to make this particular one-shot.
I plan on doing one more short story before taking a mild break heading into the new year. It should be out on the eve of Christmas Eve, so be on the lookout for yet another Benjamin one-shot.
Here's to a happy and healthy holiday to everyone having a good read this season.