Three Years

On a quiet evening in the cold month of October, a mysterious man in his early twenties rang the doorbell of a white mansion. It may seem innocent, but truth to be told, it was the first man to ring that bell in exactly three years. The man felt a bit nervous, for reasons unknown to himself as well.

Footsteps echoed through the entire mansion, audible for the by now trembling man at the door. There was something morbid about this house. As the footsteps became louder and louder and their unknown creator approached the door, the man grew more anxious. His already pale face grew paler by the second, by now he was contemplating whether to run or to try and suppress his anxiety.

The decision was made for him, as the door opened slowly. The hinges snarled at their first activity in exactly three years, complaining. An innocent, beautiful girl opened the door. The man cleared his throat, relieved. "Good evening," he greeted. "I am Mr Sebastian Crey." The girl stared at him in silence, making the man feel uncomfortable. As he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, she took a step back, inviting Sebastian in without a word.

She led the way to a broad room, which, Sebastian assumed, was the living room. The girl turned around faster than he could have imagined to be possible, glaring at him for a short while. It felt an eternity to him. She shifted her glare to a flight of stairs before taking them. Sebastian stayed behind uncomfortably, not knowing if he should follow the girl. He assumed the glare meant 'stay here'. The man shuddered as he imagined what the teenager would do to him if he did anything she did not like.

Not daring to take a curious look around in the wealthily decorated room, Sebastian carefully laid his hat on a table that had to date back to at least the eighteenth century. He sat himself down, trying to find a pose that would not unlock the wrath of the child and that would hide his unease. He failed miserably. He started tracing imaginary patterns on his walking stick absentmindedly as he tried to remember the reason he was in this beautiful, but eerie mansion. His nervousness was making it quite hard to think of anything but the terrifying glare in the young girl's eyes.

Sebastian jumped with a start when the girl suddenly stood in front of him, seemingly having appeared out of thin air. He could have sworn she had not made a single sound. "My aunt will be down soon, Mr Crey," she said. "In the meantime you'll have to put up with me. My name is Ashlee." Sebastian attempted to smile, but his lips trembled too much. Ashlee snickered, enjoying his fear for her. "Breathe, sir," she whispered, and only as Sebastian gasped for air, he realised he'd been holding his breath. But it was not only due to the lack of air that he gasped. As his first surprise eased, he was blown away by the beautiful, melodic voice of the child, drawing him to her. He stood up and took a step towards her, while wondering why. Ashlee smiled at him alluringly. Sebastian's breath hitched in his throat. She was absolutely beautiful, it had taken him quite long to see that.

"How old are you, sir?" Ashlee asked, taking a step forward, too.

"Twenty-one," Sebastian breathed. Ashlee took another step, laying her hand on his chest, feeling his heart thump.

"Good. That's only six years older than I am, my aunt won't mind," she said, tilting her head and revealing her fragile neck. Sebastian cursed at himself for feeling like a love struck teenager all over again, without even knowing the girl. He shook the paralysis off his limbs and felt courageous enough to grab the young girl's hips. Ashlee parted her lips slightly and leaned her head back, still looking at him through half-closed eyes. She sure knew how to be tempting. With a trembling breath, Sebastian inched closer. Feeling her breath on his lips, he closed his eyes.

"My aunt's great tragedy happened just three years ago," said the child. The next moment Sebastian’s hands were holding onto nothing but air. He opened his eyes, shocked. She sat on the couch on the other side of the room. 'How did she …?' Sebastian wondered. He shrugged, deciding not to care. He was too busy feeling rejected. He walked over to her, sitting down on the coffee table in front of her, too disappointed to try again but too desperate to stay away.

"What tragedy?" he asked, hypnotised by her unnaturally dark eyes. His heart stopped dead in its tracks when a different, yet alike voice came from behind him.

"Do you know, sometimes, on still, quiet evenings like this I almost get a creepy feeling that they will walk in through that window…" His breathing ragged because of the startle, he looked over his shoulder. A middle-aged, gloriously beautiful woman stood behind him, yet there had not been any sound that would have betrayed her arrival. Sebastian assumed that this breathtaking woman was Mrs Tuckler. His eyes skipped from the young lady to her aunt. They were both beautiful and very alike. Just as breathtaking as the other.

It took Sebastian a while to find his voice. "Who will walk through that window?" he whispered, not capable of a normal volume. When he received no reply, he took a peek at Ashlee, and when there was nothing to read on her face, frozen like a statue, he looked at Mrs Tuckler. The expression he met, made him immediately stare through the same window as she was staring through.

In the deepening twilight three figures were walking across the lawn towards the window. They all carried guns under their arms. Sebastian's heart skipped a beat or two, before making blood race to his face. He flushed red as his mind started imagining all the different scenarios that could be about to kick off. As usual, the artery in his neck started pulsing, appearing on the surface. Fear took over his body and mind. His glance went to Ashlee, then to Mrs Tuckler and back. In the o point three seconds it took him to look back to Ashlee, something had changed in her expression. Her beautiful, angelic features were twisted in demonic ways, as her eyes suddenly blazed with black fury.

Sebastian scrambled backwards over the table, trying to get away from the monster the lovely, young Ashlee had suddenly turned into. He knocked against Mrs Tuckler's legs and couldn't help but notice they were hard as stone, and just as cold. He looked up to her in surprise, but found the same expression as Ashlee's on her face as she stared at the pulsing vein in his neck and the pool of lovely red swirling in his cheeks.

His instincts told him to run as fast as he could, so he got on his feet and ran to the table, grabbing wildly at his stick and hat. He turned around, hoping the armed men were close enough to save him from the devilish, but still breathtaking ladies. He was suddenly faced with five alike faces, all contorted in strange attempts to self-control. Ashlee was the first one to succeed.

"I'm so sorry, Mr Crey," she said, her voice just as velvet and smooth as before. It was as if that was the cue for the other four to relax. They disappeared before Sebastian could blink. The yelling that came from upstairs told him they'd gone upstairs at inhuman speed. Before he could try and figure out what they were yelling (it seemed like they were quarrelling about who was to go second), Ashlee demanded his attention. Literally.

"Lie down on the table," she ordered. Sebastian crawled onto it, not knowing why he was listening to her strange order. His heart was still pounding in his chest and he was suspicious of what she wanted. Never-the-less he obeyed without meaning to, as if he was a puppet on a string.

When Ashlee climbed on top of him, though, he did not regret listening to her in the slightest bit. It was as if the past minute had not happened. As if they had not been about to attack him in animal-like ways. All Sebastian could do was enjoy Ashlee's scent, breath and closeness. "How can I make such rudeness up to you, Mr Crey?" Ashlee asked alluringly. He opened his mouth, tried to find his tongue. It was lost. He could not speak. He closed his mouth, before trying again a few times. Ashlee laughed, it was like a clear bell ringing.

"I bet you'd be a lot more delicious than a fish, Mr Crey," she said, winking at him with the slightest of smiles playing on her lips. She pressed her lips to his, an unknown sensation rolling through Sebastian 's body. He did not notice how marble-like her lips were, how his lips shaped around hers. He did not notice the enormous strength with which Ashlee was pinning him to the table now.

When Ashlee leaned back, ending the kiss, he did not even notice. The taste of her lips had made him drunk, hypnotised. "It was nice meeting you, Mr Sebastian Crey," whispered Ashlee in his ear, tracing the artery with her lips ever so slightly. As her sharp teeth sank into his skin, Sebastian awoke from the slumber Ashlee's kiss had brought him into. His eyes widened, and if he were capable of opening his mouth he would have screamed in horror and pain. Where were those men with their guns to help him now? As pain burned through his body, his eyes sought the room frantically. The men were sitting on the couch, chattering happily with Mrs Tuckler. Every second, they threw a glance his way, as if they were waiting for their turn.

It felt like an eternity before Sebastian felt the teeth gliding out of his neck. An ice cold, marble hand pressed against the pulsing vein. "Next," Ashlee said, and Mrs Tuckler immediately appeared at her side. Hell started all over again for Sebastian as the next pair of teeth sank into the same wound. He felt the sucking motion of the woman as life was being drained out of him. Only a few moments before he lost consciousness, Mrs Tuckler straightened up and put pressure to the wound in her turn. One of the men was now standing by the table. "A most extraordinary man, Mr Crey," said Mrs Tuckler. "He tastes marvellous. Spicy." The agony of a third vampire digging his teeth into Sebastian 's flesh was too much for him. Sebastian Crey fell into a black hole, never to return.

When the five vampires were done with their latest victim, they threw the body in the back yard. It took only five minutes before the barking began. Then there was a munching sound to be heard. In only fifteen minutes, there was nothing left of Mr Sebastian Crey. The vampires smiled to themselves. "I expect it was the spaniel," said the niece. "It's the only one that eats this fast."

Ashlee never failed to seduce any human they wanted to taste, male nor female. And if Ashlee would ever fail once, Mrs Tuckler would not. And even then, every single one of the coven was strong enough and fast enough to catch anyone they had in mind. The human kind was too fragile to survive.