Bloody Mason Jars

By Gail Fulkerson

Ophelia was thirsty. She hadn’t had a soul-nourishing meal since the seasons changed in September and it was now November. If she could have seen her image in a mirror, she would know how pinched her face looked from a lack of nourishment. She’d be on the hunt later tonight.

As was her usual routine, she checked her equipment before she left her abode — razor-sharp fangs polished to a dazzling whiteness, manicured and polished red nails shaped like daggers and just as deadly — and a garrotte that she kept secreted in a small pocket at her waist until she needed it to subdue her larger victims. She replenished her supply of garbage bags and paper towels, both of which she kept in a small black satchel she took with her when she went hunting.

Excitement building, Ophelia smiled as she spied her prey: a mild-mannered gentleman strolling home from his job as an accountant. He was oblivious to Ophelia stalking him, and didn’t realize that the meal waiting for him in his freezer would never be eaten.

The evening’s shadows deepened as the man made his way home, and Ophelia darted from one inky shadow to the next, getting close enough to smell the blood coursing through his veins and arteries. 

“Not too long now,” thought Ophelia, as she closed the gap between them. She could almost taste the little man’s blood on her tongue.    

He was rounding the last corner before he got to his house; Ophelia would have to act fast to ensure he didn’t slip through her famished fingers. She leapt out of a black shadow and onto his back as he passed her on the sidewalk. He screamed like a schoolgirl as Ophelia’s fangs stabbed into his neck. He stumbled backwards, falling to the ground. The little vampire girl held on tightly, drinking in great mouthfuls of the man’s life-blood. 

It didn’t take long before he was drained and dead; Ophelia was wiping blood from her lips onto the lapel of the man’s suit coat. She thought of leaving bloody lip prints on his cheek, like a death kiss, but decided not to, in case it was construed as a ‘calling card’ of sorts, and Ophelia must remain anonymous.

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Still feeling a mite peckish, Ophelia hunted the streets, looking for another victim.
A lone woman sat on the steps of her dilapidated front porch, so lost in thought she didn’t notice the black shadow that was Ophelia approaching her until it was far too late. Ophelia drank her dry and dropped the husk that was the woman’s body onto the creaking porch steps, where her husband would discover it the next morning. 

Ophelia haunted the streets until the first glimmer of light stained the sky. It was a good thing that she had brought the garbage bags; they came in quite handy to carry the unconscious and dying snacks (read: 12 large wharf rats and 8 small dogs) back to her lair. 

Once she arrived home, she throttled the life out of her catch, made a small nick in each jugular, and drained the red elixir into a large bowl. She then ladled the blood into sanitized one-litre mason jars and sealed them. These new jars would go on the shelves next to the other jars of blood that lined the basement walls. When it comes to blood, a vampire never seems to have enough on hand, and Ophelia didn’t want to be one of the vampires who never stocked up. Besides, hunting on winter streets in Saskatchewan was a huge pain in the butt. 

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She stifled a yawn as she got ready to slip into her coffin-bed and snuggle under the many blankets and afghans she had collected over the decades. Ophelia herself didn’t knit or crochet, so the ones in her possession were covers she had stolen from her victims’ beds. Oftentimes the victims’ energies remained on the blankets and afghans and Ophelia would have weird and sometimes scary dreams. The dreams that scared her the most were the ones in which she opened a door at the end of a hallway and hot, unyielding sunlight greeted her. The door would disappear and Ophelia would be left to burn to ashes. She’d awake screaming and covered in blood-sweat afterwards.

After such dreams, she made sure to sneak out before sunrise to lay the items on her front lawn to let the sun purify them. Later she would launder her snuggly collection and put them back in her coffin-bed.

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Ophelia stretched and settled in for a good day’s sleep.  

-- Gail Fulkerson is a writer who specializes in the supernatural. She lives with her family in Saskatchewan, where she is working on another story. This is the second story in a series about Ophelia Banks. Stay tuned to 'OZ' for future stories.