Vampire Strain

During the last week of the month, something strange happened at Greenwood.

There was a school janitor named Perkins, responsible for getting up early each day to clean the underground passageway.

His daily task was to carry a bucket and mop down the eastern staircase, mopping all the way to the western exit.

He had done the job for years and could have walked the route with his eyes closed.

But on Tuesday morning, when the other janitors arrived for work, they found Perkins curled up on the steps by the stairwell entrance.

His mop lay three steps away, and his overturned bucket spilled dirty water down the stairs.

Perkins was trembling all over. His shirt was soaked through with cold sweat and clung to his back.

Someone helped him up and gave him a mouthful of hot tea.

He only repeated the same sentence over and over: "Something down there was breathing."

When asked what it was, he could not explain.

When asked what he had seen, he shook his head and said he had not seen anything at all.

The school doctor diagnosed him with a stress-induced reaction and advised him to rest at home for two weeks.

Perkins was helped home, still shaking even as he passed through the school gates.

The students saw the incident, and by lunchtime, half the cafeteria was discussing Perkins.

Richard had just finished his oxtail soup when Warren leaned over from across the table.

He held a yellowed sheet of paper, folded over several times, its edges already frayed.

"I'm saying... do you know what's buried beneath Greenwood's field?"

He slapped the paper onto the table.

"Here we go again." Mason chewed his bread, apparently used to Warren's rumors.

"No, this time it's the real deal." Warren tapped the paper with one fingertip.

"My cousin dug it out of the old archives at the municipal library. He photocopied the original newspaper."

Gray set down her knife and fork, her blue eyes sweeping over the page.

Hugh lifted his face from his tray. Several students eating nearby heard the commotion and edged closer as well.

Mason claimed he was not interested, but his backside stayed firmly planted.

Warren flattened out the photocopy.

The printed type had blurred considerably through reproduction, but the headline was still legible:

Briston Evening News, dated November, New Calendar 1862.

"About fifty years ago." He pointed to the words circled in red ink.

"The land east of Greenwood, where the field and new gymnasium are now, used to be a Textile Mill.

"One night during the night shift, a female worker named Beth suddenly stopped breathing in the silk-reeling workshop."

"She died in a very strange way. There were two holes in her neck."

Warren picked up his fork from his plate and gestured twice at the side of his own neck.

"Like someone had driven in a nail and pulled it back out. Round and deep, but there was no bleeding."

He set down the fork. "Have you ever seen dried meat left out in the sun for an entire summer?

"That was what she looked like. A healthy female worker turned into a dried corpse weighing less than half her normal body weight."

Gray's brow creased slightly.

Mason forgot to chew the bread in his mouth.

"The police classified it at the time as 'death from unknown causes.'" Warren flipped to the middle of the clipping.

"The body was sent home to prepare for burial. Back then, poor families did not use funeral homes. They kept the coffin in the main room of their own house."

"But on the third night..." He struck the tabletop hard with his fork. "Beth's corpse climbed out of the coffin."

The surrounding area fell silent at once, everyone listening intently.

"The coffin lid was pushed open from the inside. The scraping sound of nails against the wall woke the people sleeping next door.

"Beth's mother came out after hearing it and saw her daughter standing beside the coffin."

Warren stopped imitating the scratching against the table. "But that was no longer her daughter."

"She killed her own mother first."

Someone at the table sucked in a breath.

"She killed her the same way she had died—two holes in the neck, the body drained dry.

"After draining her family, she walked out of the house and returned all the way to the Textile Mill. The Factory was still running its night shift then."

"That night, the female workers tried to fight back.

"Some smashed her head with iron shuttles. Some stabbed her in the back with large fabric shears... but none of it worked.

"Cutting weapons struck her body as if they were hitting iron. She neither bled nor suffered a scratch."

The cafeteria's background noise suddenly seemed especially grating.

The lunch lady's ladle clanged against an iron bucket, making a younger girl nearby jerk her head down in fright.

"What happened afterward?" someone asked.

"Afterward, the authorities sent people over." Warren turned to the back of the clipping.

"The newspaper called them the 'Special Health Inspection Group.' Strange name, right? They sealed off the factory after arriving, but two inspectors died during the operation."

"So how did they finally kill her?" Mason had finally swallowed his mouthful of bread.

"They didn't."

Warren turned the photocopy around so everyone could see the smaller print on the back.

"The newspaper ended with only one sentence: 'The matter has been properly handled.'

"But the factory was demolished, and its foundations were sealed away. The official explanation was 'health hazards.'"

He tapped the last line of a messy handwritten note at the bottom of the photocopy.

"There have always been rumors that the thing was never destroyed. It was sealed deep beneath the foundation, along with the..."

He held the words "wronged souls" on his tongue for a moment before letting them out.

"Later, the land changed hands several times. In the end, Greenwood bought it to expand the school, and the field and gymnasium were built on the original site."

"So the field where we run during PE..." Warren pointed beneath their feet with his fork. "That thing might be sealed right under it."

The table remained silent for several seconds.

The younger girl who had been frightened earlier hurriedly stood up, clutching her tray and repeatedly saying, "I'm not listening, I'm not listening," as she hurried away.

Warren wanted to laugh but could not quite manage it, rather pleased with the effect of his story.

"Believe it or not, but the recent incidents in the basement..."

He tilted his chin toward the outside. "Old Perkins was scared into that state, and I heard the equipment has been lining itself up at midnight... do you think that's a coincidence?"

Richard held his teacup and drained its last sip.

He picked out the key details from Warren's story one by one:

Two holes in the neck, a body drained dry, a corpse reanimated, immense strength, and no bleeding or injury when struck by cutting weapons.

In Appendix C of that book, besides its general overview of what lay beyond The Veil, it had also mentioned several common Evil Beings.

One passage was about "Vampire Strain."

Vampire Strain.

They were not native species from beyond The Veil, but mutations produced through deep Aether Contamination.

Vampire Strain fed on life force. They usually fed by piercing their prey with their teeth, extracting the Aether and blood from the victim's body at the same time.

Those killed by Vampire Strain would retain Aether contaminants left behind during feeding.

In the overwhelming majority of cases, those remnants would dissipate along with the life force after the host died.

But in extremely rare cases, if the host possessed dormant Aether affinity, the residual contaminants would react with the corpse.

It could not be called resurrection. The corpse would not regain life.

The Aether contaminants would occupy the emptied shell, driving it to move, feed, and kill.

The text called such a creation a Ghoul.