The Vampires of Vigil's Sorrow Read online

  The Vampires of Vigil’s Sorrow

  Cassandra Duffy

  Day Moon Press

  2012

  Other Books by Cassandra:

  Demons of Paradise

  Astral Liaisons

  Fabled Fang Girls

  The Gunfighter and The Gear-head

  The Last Best Tip

  An Undead Grift for Christmas

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any matter whatsoever without the written permission, except in the cases of brief quotations in critical articles or reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, locations, and events are meant to be fictitious. Any similarity between any persons living, dead, or undead is completely coincidental. The events are fictional, although Vermont is definitely a real place, Vigil’s Hope is not a real town.

  Day Moon Press

  ©2012 Cassandra Duffy

  Cover Design by Katiie Kissglosse

  Edited by Nichole Mauer

  For Nikki

  Table of Contents

  Part 1: The Witch of Vigil’s Grove – Summer 1955 – Debbie

  1 – 2 – 3

  Part 2: The Pariah of Vigil’s Rest – Winter 1955 – Grace

  1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7

  Part 3: Slumber in Broken Earth – Winter 1955 – Debbie

  1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6

  Part 4: Repentance and Revenge of the Father – Spring 1956 – Henry

  1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 – 9

  Part 5: Angel of Solemnity – Autumn 1982 – Daphne

  1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 – 9

  Part 6: Blood Red Riding Hood – Autumn 2005 – Annabelle

  1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5

  Part 7: Unburied Bones – Autumn 2005 – Annabelle and Debbie

  1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 – 9 – 10

  Part 8: The Twisted Root – Autumn 1849 – Margaret

  1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7

  Part 9: Peace for the Fallen – Autumn 2010 – Debbie, Annabelle, and Daphne

  1 – 2 – 3

  Part 1: The Witch of Vigil’s Grove

  Summer 1955 – Debbie

  1.

  Deborah Poole’s unease at being touched by her boyfriend had steadily grown their entire senior year until the summer after. While everyone in Vigil’s Rest was talking wedding bells, she was ready to jump out of her skin whenever his hand landed on her shoulder. There wasn’t anything particularly wrong with Philip Cox. In fact, if she was being honest, there was positively everything right about him, which was why the revulsion was so disconcerting.

  Debbie watched Phil at the bottle game, valiantly trying to win her a stuffed bear by breaking old 7 Up bottles with a baseball while a carnival barker did his best to distract. Phil was an All-State shortstop in high school with offers from several minor league teams talking a someday chance at the majors. Debbie knew that carnival barker was no match for her beau, a fact that should have swelled her with pride, but she didn’t really care. She watched from a safe distance, holding his letterman’s jacket, glad he was having fun, but not particularly interested in any of the prizes he’d promised to win her. With his tight white t-shirt, khakis, and a smart Princeton haircut, there was little doubt Philip Cox was the dreamboat everyone kept telling Debbie he was, but she simply didn’t see it. Looking past his perfectly cocked arm, she spotted the rest of the cheer squad collected around the base of the Ferris wheel, watching Phil, their eyes practically devouring his muscular form.

  Debbie knew the normal reaction would have been jealousy, but what she really wanted was for almost any of them to steal her boyfriend. She would altruistically let him go since she still couldn’t bring herself to do much more than necking, and selfishly she would be freed of the groping hands and dreary conversations about baseball and modified Chevys. She was a fream, an outsider, someone who looked like everyone else, dressed like everyone else, and acted like everyone else, but who secretly wanted to be something that she didn’t even have a name for. There was one word she knew for it, although it was an umbrella term for just about anything bad, and that was sin.

  Phil glanced to her before his throw, smiled that all American boy smile, winked slyly, and without looking threw the baseball as hard as he could. The ball shattered a three bottle pyramid in an explosion of green glass shards. The other cheerleaders burst into cheers, applause, and feigned swooning. Debbie, despite being their captain, their leader, only smiled and offered Phil his jacket.

  Homecoming queen, cheer captain, Harvest Festival Princess were all behind her with graduation and her eighteenth birthday having taken place two months prior. She had an acceptance letter from Barnard College at home, tucked at the bottom of her hope chest, along with a ticket, and money saved from babysitting to effect her escape. By the time her parents, Phil, her friends, or anyone knew what had happened, she would be on a bus to New York.

  Phil exchanged the jacket Debbie was holding for the big sad-looking teddy bear the barker reluctantly had given him. She accepted the bear, thanked him with an obligatory kiss on the cheek, and stifled the routine grimace felt when he put his arm around her shoulders. They walked over to the Ferris wheel where the rest of the squad had gathered. The four girls fawned over them both, hinting repeatedly that there would be enough time for a June wedding in ‘56 if they started planning that fall. Debbie, who should have been the receptive audience for such talk, nodded and smiled at the appropriate times without participating, and Phil gave his usual awe-shucks responses that drove the girls into giggle fits.

  Debbie had other interests though, namely Grace Corker’s smile. She was a new friend in comparison to the other girls that Debbie had known since grade school. Grace was from Maine, having moved to Vigil’s Rest three years ago when her father bought into the dairy processing plant. Grace was lovely with her bee-stung lips stained red from the cherry Snow cone she was eating and her dark brown hair in the short, sassy Elizabeth Taylor cut from the cover of “Movie World” magazine. Grace loved movies. She’d dragged Debbie to see East of Eden a dozen times that spring to moon over James Dean. Debbie had gone, long after the other girls stopped accepting the invitation, as Grace would lean against her shoulder and grasp her hand in girlish delight whenever James Dean appeared on screen. Debbie knew the attention was meant for him, but she soaked it up regardless.

  The girls departed, leaving Debbie and Phil alone. Debbie watched longingly after Grace until they passed beyond the games to head into the pumpkin displays on the other end of the fairgrounds. Someone snapping their fingers pulled Debbie’s gaze away just in time to be blinded by a flash bulb going off. “You can pick it up at the end of the week,” a man said. “Thank you, sir, I will,” Phil replied. It took several moments of blinking away the white spot in her eyes before Debbie pieced together she’d had her picture taken.

  “Don’t pay that man for a picture,” Debbie said sourly. “Let me clue you in: it’s all a scam.”

  “We’re not all on the stick like you, Debbie-downer,” Phil said. “Besides, I wanted a picture of you holding that bear to show the grandkids someday.”

  “Go easy on the money you spend on me, okay?” Debbie said.

  “If that isn’t the living end: a girl asking not to have money spent on her,” Phil laughed. “You’re a kookie chick, Miss Poole.”

  “I guess, I am, but on the square, go easy.”

  Phil leaned in and kissed her aggressively, somehow slipping his jacket around her shoulders in the process. “It’s my money,” he said, “I’ll spend it how I want. Do you want a ride home or are you g
oing to stay and gawk at the gourds?”

  “I’ll walk,” Debbie said, resisting the urge to wipe her mouth.

  “Suit yourself.” Phil walked a few steps off before turning back with a snap of his fingers. “Do you want to go out to Darren’s to see his new rod? It’s supposed to be a hopped-up Ford his dad bought him.”

  “I’m listening to records with Grace tomorrow.”

  “Bring her along,” Phil said. “Darren’s into that little fuzzy duck for some reason.”

  Debbie cringed at the thought of pimply Darren Goff pawing at Grace in the backseat of some zoomed up Ford. “I’ll mention it,” Debbie lied. “No promises.”

  In the fading light of the day, before the carnival’s midway could really get cranking for the night crowd, Debbie headed over to the pumpkin displays in hopes of catching up with the girls. The rows upon rows of freshly cut and blue ribbon worthy pumpkins set on wooden tables with note cards to tell the grower and strain were coming earlier and earlier. It used to be September before anyone would even dream of clipping a vine, but the fair was moved up to August to take advantage of the summer break and the 4H members scrambled to keep pace. Debbie’s shoes crunched across the straw lay down to create an autumn feel despite the oppressive heat of summer still lingering. There was talk of moving the fair back to October where it had originally started, but Debbie hoped not as she enjoyed the nightlife the carnival provided.

  The girls were already gone, and Debbie was left to wander the pumpkins with the gifted teddy bear and Phil’s unwanted jacket resting hotly across her shoulders. He insisted on putting the jacket on her no matter how hot it was, but would chastise her anytime she brought anything near it that might stain. She’d given it back countless times only to find it wrapped back around her shoulders. She might have even left the jacket somewhere on purpose to teach him a lesson if she wasn’t leaving town herself; she didn’t want to hurt Phil unduly, although she knew that was likely to happen, and losing his jacket before breaking things off with a dear John letter seemed like a double rat thing to do.

  She was on the edge of the fairgrounds, near the overflow dirt parking lot that wouldn’t fill up for another hour when she realized she was being followed. She was so engrossed in thoughts of pumpkins and her future freedom that she didn’t notice she’d picked up a tail until she was well out of screaming range of anyone who could do something about it. She glanced over her shoulder at the end of the last aisle of pumpkins and spotted the man with the intense eyes locked on her. He was a rangy thing with more than a few days worth of black stubble staining his face. His clothes were thread worn and mismatched. He was a stranger in a town where everyone knew everyone. A shiver of fear ran up Debbie’s back even as she broke out in a panicked sweat.

  To turn back, she’d have to walk past him, or she could keep going out into the parking lot and across into Vigil’s Wood; neither option sounded remotely appealing. The man wasn’t one to let her set and decide either. His hand slipped into his pocket and he began walking toward her with a determined forward slant to his shoulders. She dropped the teddy bear and ran. A glance to either direction when her shoes hit the dirt of the overflow parking lot confirmed both sides were fenced and gated. She didn’t know how fast the man could run, but she knew she couldn’t climb a six-foot security fence in her poodle skirt. But she could run, and fear only made her saddle shoes fly faster until she ran directly out of Phil’s jacket, hitting the edge of the woods at a dead sprint. She didn’t dare chance a look over her shoulder to find her pursuer as she weaved through the trees. One misplaced step, one low hanging tree branch, or one twisted ankle on an exposed root would guarantee she was caught. If she could keep her pace and maybe lose him in the forest, she could loop around and double back to the road to find help. She hoped he was the half-starved scarecrow he seemed to be and she definitely hoped she was the graceful deer everyone always told her she was.

  When the only sounds reaching her ears were the huffing and puffing of her own breath and the crunching of her own shoes along the forest floor, she slowed and looked back over her shoulder. There was no one behind her. The forest was dark and calm, impenetrably guarded against the setting sun. She searched for a break to either side, someway to escape through the thick trees in order to begin her doubling back plan. Every time she ventured off the deer trail she’d run down, she found the direction completely impassable. Darkness settled almost completely over the woods when she returned to the deer trail for the fourth time. She was frustrated and frightened with only two obvious options left: continue deeper into the woods or risk going back the exact same way she came. She was dirty, tired, and had calmed to the point where she wasn’t entirely sure anymore that she’d even been chased.

  The answer to her doubts came quick as she stood uncertainly weighing her options. A hand grasped her by the hair at the back of her head and painfully yanked her off her feet. Fetid breath and rotting teeth were suddenly blowing commands in her face, calling her a bitch for running, and promising she would pay. Strong, rough, dirty hands pawed at her clothes. She struggled until she heard the snap of a pocket knife blade locking into place and felt the cold metal press against her throat. Then the man was gone. The weight of him lifted off her entirely and she caught a glimpse of him flying back up through the trees with an expression of utter shock painted on his gaunt features.

  Debbie didn’t wait to see who her savior was or if they might choose to claim her for themselves. She scrambled to her feet and ran in the direction she’d come, her energy renewed by a jolt of fresh fear.

  The midway was in full swing and the overflow parking lot packed with cars by the time she got back to the fairgrounds. She weaved through the parked cars until she was back in the relative safety of the pumpkin displays. A handful of families were making their inspections of the gourds and gave her disheveled appearance a wary glance. She’d been attacked, lost the bear, lost the jacket, and she couldn’t even correctly identify who had chased or saved her. She allowed herself to be led further into the fairgrounds by police officers summoned by one of the women from her church.

  The police officers escorted her to the fairground offices, called her parents, and took her statement. It required a dozen tries to convince them she meant “black stubble on his face” and not “black man with stubble” in her description of her attacker. It took her even longer to explain why she’d run into the woods instead of calling for help. The entire experience, which wore on through the rest of the evening well into the night, left her with the distinct impression the police officers believed she’d made the whole thing up for the attention.

  After her parents arrived, it appeared her father would side with the police officers as well, stating she’d given herself quite a fright, and asked the police officers if they might take a look around to see if they could find Phil’s jacket that his daughter had so carelessly lost. They assured her father they would, and one actually said, “case closed” on his way out the door. Debbie could have spit she was so angry at their dismissal.

  Back at home, it took an hour more to convince her mother that she didn’t need to sleep in their room that night. She was eighteen and wasn’t in any danger in her own bedroom. She tried for several hours to sleep, but always came away with nothing to show for it, finally abandoning the project to step onto the front step to smoke a cigarette. Her parents both smoked and knew she’d picked up the habit, with differing opinions on the matter. Her father believed it was unladylike, but her mother stated it would be a good practice to help keep her weight down. Debbie thought it was relaxing even though it had long since lost the rebellious edge that initially drew her to it. Sitting on the porch swing in their quiet little post-war neighborhood, she was halfway through her second cigarette when her nerves finally began to calm.

  Women’s shoes clicked along the new sidewalk that had just been poured on half their street. For an instant Debbie considered rushing back into the house to hide. She managed to tam
p down her fear with a healthy revival of the anger at her father and the police officers thinking it would all serve them right if she was murdered right there on her own porch by someone they all thought didn’t exist. Sadly, or perhaps more thankfully, the clicking shoes at 2 AM belonged to a girl. She was tall, blond, and waif thin with ethereal white skin that positively glowed in the moonlight.

  Debbie had never seen the girl before, but she recognized the teddy bear she was carrying as one from the carnival bottle toss game and the letterman jacket she was wearing as one belonging to a baseball player from her school. It didn’t necessarily mean anything. The girl might have been a couple years behind her, and Debbie knew she didn’t pay much attention to sophomores or freshman. Half the girls in town likely had similar bears won by boyfriends, brothers, or fathers. And there were more than enough baseball players with similar jackets to give to girls. All of her explanations evaporated though when the girl turned right at the walkway and began coming up the stone path toward the house.