A Thrilling Lucrative Evening

By Gail Fulkerson

Ophelia positively despised housework and put it off until the cobwebs were as thick as rope. She had never been good at it, and the time between cleanings stretched weeks to months. It wasn’t so bad; she never received guests, so it was just her, Roscoe, the vampire dog, and the odd spider. She didn’t mind as long as the arachnids were minuscule, didn’t run too fast, and kept to their spaces in the corners near the ceiling. It was the gangly daddy-long legs that gave her the creeps. She’d much rather be hunting with Roscoe.

She awoke late; the sun had set, and evening had bloomed into a silky blackness. These were the nights when hunting was stellar. On nights like this one, she and Roscoe would come home in the wee hours loaded down with blood bags taken from their numerous kills. It was all so easy; their victims seemed to bleed out of the woodwork, ostensibly begging to be throttled and drained. The two killers happily obliged them all.

The night’s first casualty was an older woman walking home from the movie theatre. She was humming a tune from the movie as she went along the cracked sidewalks toward home when Ophelia stepped out in front of her. Roscoe was padding silently behind the old lady; he leapt and landed on the woman’s back, teeth and fangs finding purchase in the left side of her neck. The woman let out a strangled shriek as she hit the cement, breaking her glasses and losing her cane. Ophelia joined her dog in the attack, and the pair quickly dispatched the oldster.

Fatality number two occurred within an hour of the older woman’s demise. A teenage girl was walking home from a babysitting job a few streets from where she and her family resided. Rounding the corner to her house, the teen was accosted by Ophelia and Roscoe, who jumped her from the lilacs coming into bloom. She squealed when Roscoe bit down on one of her ankles. She was about to scream when Ophelia silenced her with a bite to her jugular. Four blood bags later, they were off to hunt down their third victim of the night.

Death came to their third sacrificial lamb after the pair of vampires chased a man down a dark alley and cornered him. He put up his hands in surrender as he tried to catch his breath, grinning and thinking it was just some kids having a lark chasing him; he was surprised to see who was after him. He didn’t notice the fangs until Ophelia smiled, and Roscoe went for one of his legs. As the dog bit down, Ophelia reached out for the young man and brought him to her in a deadly embrace. The guy didn’t want to see anymore, so he squeezed his eyes shut as the young vampire girl bit into his neck and began to drink. As with the previous two, it was all over in moments.

The fourth kill of the night died without a whimper. Non-human and corpulent, the Rhode Island Red brood hen had caught the pair’s attention when it began loudly clucking before dawn had even broken. Ophelia wondered what was wrong with the stupid bird as she watched Roscoe sneak up on the chicken and eviscerate it with his fangs before lapping up the blood. She was content to observe and not participate in this one.

The fifth and final reap was a drunk and disorderly young man whom the pair of killers came upon as they were making their way home.

“Oh, this one is going to be fun,” Ophelia thought.

Belligerent and irritable, this one would not go down without a fight. She toyed with him for a while, then passed him off to Roscoe to use as a chew toy. The longer Ophelia and Roscoe played with him, the nastier and more enraged the man became, which made Ophelia chuckle. The man tried to slug Ophelia, but she was much too fast for him; she turned and sliced his arms with her talon-like nails for his audacity. Roscoe had been circling, watching for an opening to dart in, sink his teeth into the man’s flesh, and feed.  

It had been a most productive night for Ophelia and Roscoe. The two of them were bone-tired when they arrived home, but they couldn’t yet fall into bed since some work was needed. Of the five they had reaped, the blood bag count was 14—not a bad haul for the diminutive hunters. It was time to put the blood into jars and place them on a shelf in the basement.

Ophelia needed to unwind after all the evening’s excitement, so she plugged in the kettle and brewed herself a relaxing cuppa blood tea. Roscoe also got his cup, which was more petite than Ophelia’s but brewed with the same care as her own.

Together, the two sipped and relaxed. Roscoe fell asleep before he finished his tea; Ophelia nodded off soon after.

The empty cup and saucer slid from Ophelia’s lap and clattered to the floor, the sound waking them both. She was annoyed with herself as she picked up the errant dishes and placed them in the sink with the rest of the dirty cups and plates. She’d get to them—eventually.  

Ophelia scooped up Roscoe, and the pair made their way to bed. Dawn was breaking as she trudged up the stairs to her blacked-out room and coffin bed. She gently laid Roscoe in his spot—top right corner—and placed the covers over him. He stirred slightly but settled in as Ophelia snuggled under the quilts and afghans.

Listening to Roscoe’s soft snoring, the young vampire girl drifted asleep.

-- Gail Fulkerson is a writer who specializes in writings of the supernatural. She lives with her family in Saskatchewan, where she is working on another story. This is a series about Ophelia Banks. Gail just published her new book: "Tales of the Macabre". The book is available at Turning the Tide bookstore in Saskatoon or online direct from Gail. Make a comment and I will pass on your information to her. Stay tuned to 'OZ' for future stories.