A Vampire Christmas Carol

by Sarah Gray

  A churchyard. Here, then, the wretched man whose name he had now to learn, lay underneath the ground. It was a worthy place. Walled in by houses, overrun by grass and weeds, the growth of vegetation’s death, not life choked up with too much burying, fat with repleted appetite. A worthy place.

  The spirit stood among the graves and pointed down to one. Scrooge advanced toward it, trembling. The phantom was exactly as it had been, but he dreaded that he saw new meaning in its solemn shape.

  “Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point,” said Scrooge, “answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that will be, or are they shadows of things that may be, only?”

  Still the ghost pointed downward to the grave by which it stood.

  “Men’s courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead,” said Scrooge. “But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me.”

  The spirit was immovable as ever.

  Scrooge crept toward it, trembling as he went, and following the finger, read upon the stone of the neglected grave his own name, Ebenezer Scrooge.

  “Am I that man who lay upon the bed?” he cried, falling upon his knees, his nightdress tangled around his bony limbs.

  The finger pointed from the grave to him, and back again.

  “No, Spirit. Oh no, no.”

  The finger still was there.

  Then a figure appeared at Scrooge’s feet, a woman thrown prostrate upon the grave, her arms spread wide. She sobbed, making great gulping sounds, struggling to take each breath, she was so overcome by emotion. “Ebenezer,” she cried. “My Ebenezer. I cannot believe you are lost. I cannot believe we could not save you and now you are doomed to walk the earth as Jacob walks it, enrobed in those awful chains. It’s my fault. My fault you were not saved!”

  She turned her face, pressing her cheek to the ground, and Scrooge knew her at once. It was Belle! It was his Belle, and she cried for him! For his death!

  “Belle . . . ,” Scrooge murmured, wishing he could reach out to her, knowing he could not. “It is not your burden,” he told her, a sob rising up in his throat for, at that moment, he was as wrought over Belle’s broken heart as he was his own doomed fate. “It is my fault, dear Belle. Mine and mine alone. Please do not cry. Do not mourn for me, for I cannot stand it. To know you loved me all these years, and I was blind. So blind.”

  “How will I go on, knowing you are gone,” she went on. “Knowing I failed you?”

  “You see,” exclaimed Ebenezer. “There is someone who weeps for my death. Don’t you see, Spirit—” He looked up to where the spirit had been, but it was gone. In its place stood Wahltraud, King of the Vampires, and his Queen Griselda.

  Ebenezer cried out in fear and stumbled to his feet, for these two frightened him more than would a dozen copies of Ghosts of Christmas Yet to Come.

  Belle faded from his vision.

  “What are you doing here?” Scrooge demanded, shaking in his slippers. “Can you not even give me peace in my death?”

  Somehow he felt his present body becoming one with his future self. The lines seemed to blur, not just between the future and the present, but with the past as well. He didn’t quite understand what was happening, but the entire evening had been without complete understanding, had it not?

  The vampire queen smiled and glided toward him, a truly beautiful and frightening creature. “It does not have to be this way,” she said in a voice as silky as the lining of any good coffin. She turned to Wahltraud and he smoothed her hair, petting her as if she were a kitten. “Do you wish to tell him or shall I, my dear?”

  “Oh, you must tell him, my love,” crooned Wahltraud, still stroking her. “He is, after all, your pet.”

  She smiled up at him, a smile that revealed long, ivory fangs, and then she returned her attention to Scrooge, her voice taking an edge. “You heard what she said, that one? Regarding your fate?” She gestured with a slender, pale hand. “You will be doomed to walk the earth eternally, neither dead nor alive, dragging those dreadful chains, agonizing over each link, regretting what cannot be altered.”

  Scrooge threaded his fingers together, gripping his hands. “My fate is to be the same as Jacob Marley’s,” he said. “Worse.”

  “Worse by many stone,” the queen assured him with a smile.

  “A terrible fate,” intoned the king.

  Scrooge shook his head in disbelief, his eyes closed. He wanted to tell them this was all their fault, the king’s and queen’s . . . the vampires’. But he knew the truth. Time and time again while they might have offered temptation or tribulation, it was he who had made the final choice. No one had ever physically forced his hand.

  “A wretched fate, indeed,” said the queen. “But one you can still avoid.”

  Scrooge looked up, his hands still clenched in prayer. “I . . . I can? You mean these events can still be altered?” He glanced back at the spirit, who was fading with every passing moment, and somehow Scrooge knew that once the ghost was gone, Scrooge’s fate would be sealed. “How?” he begged, turning back toward the vampires.

  I hesitate to interrupt, dear reader, at such a pivotal moment in this tale, but I must question why, after all Scrooge had witnessed, he would turn to Queen Griselda and King Wahltraud. Were you Ebenezer Scrooge, would you not place your trust in the spirit (no matter how frightening he might seem) sent to guide you, rather than the vampires that have spent your full life contributing to your undoing?

  I apologize for my digression. Back to the story. . . .

  41

  “Tell me how,” Scrooge insisted. “How may I alter my fate?”

  The queen smiled at her king, then smiled down upon Scrooge, for she seemed taller than he at this moment. “You can join us,” she said in the sweetest voice, a voice that could mesmerize a man. Enchant him. Even entice.

  “Join you?” questioned Scrooge.

  “Become one of us and live for all eternity. You would have great autonomy. You would be left to count your gold, make as much of it as you like, take advantage of as many as you like.” She smiled sweetly. “It would be a good life, Ebenezer. No chains, no howling, no wandering the earth.”

  Ebenezer looked into her black eyes. “And in return for this reprieve?” he asked, for nothing was ever free.

  Queen Griselda glanced over her shoulder, smiled at the king, and then looked back at Ebenezer. “All you must do is bring me the blood of one little human.” She held up a finger.

  “One?” Scrooge whispered, horrified.

  “Bring me the blood of your Belle, and you will live forever, Ebenezer Scrooge.”

  “Nooooooo!”

  Ebenezer heard the scream, and for a moment, he did not know from where it came. The he realized his own mouth was agape and the terrifying sound was coming from within. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of the fading robe of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, and he flung himself into the dark mist that was the specter, his last hope.

  “Spirit,” he cried, tightly clutching at its robe, his eyes screwed shut. “Hear me. I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been but for this intercourse. Why show me this, if I am past all hope?”

  For the first time the hand appeared to shake.

  The vision of the king and queen was beginning to fade. Ebenezer could still hear Queen Griselda’s voice, but it sounded far off. She was shouting at him, demanding his attention, but he ignored her. The more he ignored her, the faster she faded.

  “Good Spirit,” Scrooge pursued, as down upon the ground he fell before it, “your nature intercedes for me, and pities me. Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you have shown me, by an altered life. That I am not forced to chose between two variations of the undead.”

  The kind hand trembled.

  “Give me a chance and I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the past, the present, and the
future. The spirits of all three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. I will never again be controlled by the vampires,” he declared, and the vision of them vanished. “I will rise against them with my fellow man until they are no more. Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone.”

  In his agony, he caught the spectral hand. It sought to free itself, but he was strong in his entreaty, and detained it. The spirit, stronger yet, repulsed him.

  Holding up his hands in a last prayer to have his fate reversed, he saw an alteration in the phantom’s hood and dress. It shrunk, collapsed, and dwindled down into a bedpost.

  STAVE 5

  THE END OF IT

  42

  Yes! and the bedpost was his own. The bed was his own, the room was his own. Best and happiest of all, the time before him was his own, to make amends in!

  “I will live in the past, the present, and the future,” Scrooge repeated, as he scrambled out of bed. “And I shall be a champion of mankind. I will see an end to the vampires! I will smite them head and foot. I will dedicate my life to doing good and ridding Great Britain of the bloodsuckers. The spirits of all three shall strive within me—past, present, and future—and their words within me will give me the strength to carry a pike upon my shoulder. Oh Jacob Marley! Oh my dearest Belle who sent him! Heaven, and the Christmas time be praised for this. I say it on my knees, my dearest Belle, my beloved, on my knees.”

  He was so fluttered and so glowing with his good intentions that his broken voice would scarcely answer to his call. He had been sobbing violently in his conflict with the spirit, and his face was wet with tears.

  “They are not torn down,” cried Scrooge, folding one of his bed-curtains in his arms and then burying his face in the heavy fabric. “They are not torn down, rings and all. They are here—I am here—the shadows of the things that would have been, may be dispelled. They will be. I know they will.”

  He released the curtains, throwing out his arms to turn in a circle, not caring that his nightdress tangled around his feet, nearly tripping him. “What to do first! So many choices. So many!”

  His hands were busy with his garments, turning them inside out, putting them on upside down, tearing them, mislaying them, grabbing a pillow and setting it upon his head, laughing, dancing, making his clothing and linens parties to every kind of merry extravagance of spirit.

  “So many potential opportunities that I don’t know what to do,” cried Scrooge, laughing and crying in the same breath. “I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to everybody—everyone who does not drink of the life’s blood of his fellow man. A happy new year to all the humans in this world. Hallo here.” His voice seemed to echo in the dingy, high-ceilinged chamber. “Whoop. Hallo.”

  He frisked into the sitting room, and stood there, perfectly winded.

  “There’s the saucepan of gruel upon the hob that Gelda made me,” cried Scrooge, starting off again, and going round the fireplace. “Oh, what to do about Gelda? Do I keep her on and snatch her from the vampires’ grip?” Would it even be possible? Once a human became a vampire’s minion (for surely she was one), could he or she be turned around, or was Gelda already lost to mankind? What if she, like Scrooge, had been taken advantage of, manipulated by the beasties? Didn’t she deserve another chance? And the boy? What to do with that poor boy of hers, for surely he could not be held responsible for his mother dallying with vampires! Surely, there must be some redemption for the hapless pair, some way to snatch them from the fangs of the evil ones. And if there was, he would discover it. “I will save you,” he cried, “even you, Gelda, and your pitiful boy, even him, so help me Christmas!”

  Scrooge spun in a circle, the motion and his jumble of thoughts making him dizzy. His mind was racing at an incredible speed, his heart still pounding. “Here’s the door, by which the ghost of Jacob Marley entered. There’s the corner where the Ghost of Christmas Present sat. There’s the window where I saw the wandering spirits. It’s all right, it’s all true, it all happened. Ha ha ha!”

  Really, for a man who had been out of practice for so many years, it was a splendid laugh, a most illustrious laugh. The father of a long, long line of brilliant laughs trapped for so long in darkness and misery now let out to the light of day and all the merrier for it.

  “I don’t know what day of the month it is,” said Scrooge. “I don’t know how long I’ve been among the spirits. I don’t know anything. I’m quite a baby. Never mind. I don’t care. I’d rather be a baby.” He thrust out his arms and spun as he had not since he was a little child. “Hallo. Whoop. Hallo here!”

  He was checked in his transports by the churches ringing out the lustiest peals he had ever heard. Clash, clang, hammer; ding, dong, bell. Bell, dong, ding; hammer, clang, clash. Oh, glorious, glorious bells, happy, happy day of joy, wonderful, glorious, happy day of his true birth.

  Running to the window, he opened it, and put out his head. No fog, no mist. It was clear, bright, jovial, stirring, cold, cold, piping for the blood to dance to. (Blood? He did not want to even think of blood. Not yet! There would be plenty of time for that, would there not? Plenty of time, thanks to the spirits!) Sun upon his face, he breathed in the frosty air; it burned his lungs and made him choke and laugh at the same time. Oh golden sunlight! Heavenly sky! Sweet fresh air and merry bells. Oh, glorious. Glorious.

  But he could not stand here in his window in his night-clothes with so much to accomplish, could he? This was not a day to be wasted, not an hour, not a minute, not a heartbeat—he must be about the business of living and caring for his neighbors and fellow men.

  “What’s today?” cried Scrooge, calling downward to a boy in Sunday clothes, who perhaps had loitered in to look about him.

  “Eh?” returned the boy, with all his might of wonder.

  Scrooge plucked off his nightcap and ran his fingers through his hair, or what was left of it! “What’s today, my fine fellow?” he asked.

  “Today?” replied the boy, seeming as shocked by Scrooge’s appearance as one would be by a vampire shouting the same question from an upper-story window. “Why, Christmas Day.”

  “It’s Christmas Day,” said Scrooge to himself as he balled up his nightcap and tossed it over his shoulder. “Then I haven’t missed it. The spirits have done it all in one night. They can do anything they like. Of course they can. Of course they can.” Scrooge began to make plans in his head, his thoughts jumping from one matter to the next. So much to do! “Hallo, my fine fellow!”

  “Hallo,” returned the boy, taking a step back. If Scrooge flew down from the windowsill, the boy probably reasoned he still had a good chance at making an escape.

  “Do you know the poulterer’s, in the next street?”

  The boy wrinkled his nose. “The one the vampires just took over, sir?”

  “The one the vampires just took over?” Scrooge repeated to himself. “Certainly not! Certainly not.”

  How had he missed such an occurrence when this young lad had knowledge of it? Blind, because he had been blind, of course! For years he’d gone through life with his eyes closed, thinking only of making his fortune, thinking only the thoughts that the evil ones had planted in his mind, but no more. From this day on he was as free as a bird.

  “Not that one, lad. Better not that one. What about on the next street over? Barnakins, it’s called, I believe.”

  “I should hope I did know that one,” replied the lad.

  “An intelligent boy,” remarked Scrooge. “A remarkable boy.” He looked down to him. “Do you know whether they’ve sold the prize turkey that was hanging up there? Not the little prize turkey. The big one.”

  “What, the one as big as me?” returned the boy, gesturing with his arms opened wide.

  “What a delightful boy,” said Scrooge, trying to make some semblance of his hair with his fingers, for surely it was standing on end after remo
ving his nightcap. “Yes, that’s the one,” he hollered down.

  “It’s hanging there now,” replied the boy.

  “Is it?” said Scrooge. “Go and buy it, then!”

  “Vampires addled your brain?” exclaimed the lad, only half in jest.

  “No, no. Well, yes, actually.”

  The lad stared up at him with a queer look on his face.

  “No, of course not,” said Scrooge, not wanting to scare the boy and not sure how to explain himself. How could he explain to this lad what he did not understand himself? “I am in earnest in the matter of the turkey. Go and buy it, and tell them to bring it here, that I may give them the direction where to take it. Come back with the man, and I’ll give you a shilling. Come back with him in less than five minutes and I’ll give you half-a-crown!”

  The boy was off like a shot. He must have had a steady hand at a trigger who could have got a shot off half so fast.

  “Delightful boy, smart and sturdy lad, the pride of his mother’s house, I’m sure,” Scrooge cried and laughed aloud again.

  “I’ll send it to Bob Cratchit’s,” murmured Scrooge, rubbing his hands, and splitting with another peal of laughter. “He shan’t know who sends it. It’s twice the size of Tiny Tim. Imagine his sister-in-law trying to cook that up.” (It occurred to him that Maena would have to be dealt with, as well, if he was to protect Tiny Tim, but he would have to speak to Bob on that matter, and tomorrow would be soon enough.) Thinking of the turkey again, he could only imagine Maena’s complaints as she was forced to haul it to the cook shop, for she could never roast such a bird in the Cratchits’ inadequate kitchen. He giggled at the thought of Maena trudging to the cook shop with that massive bird.

  The hand in which he wrote his clerk’s address was not a steady one, but write it he did, somehow, and went downstairs to open the street door, ready for the coming of the poulterer’s man. As he stood there, waiting his arrival, the knocker caught his eye.