Chapter 1
THIS STORY WAS INSPIRED BY MY DAY OUT WITH THE VAMPIRE KNIGHT'.
Footsteps sounded eerily behind me as I walked through the woods alone coming home from school. It was late September and although it had remained warm, autumn was finally making her presence known with a cold breeze and a low eerie white mist weaving around the trees.Anyone could be following me. A twig snapped and my heart started to race.Swallowing hard, I forced myself to turn around and face whoever was there.But when I did, I couldn’t see anyone.Maybe I had imagined it.I headed towards Tatterick lake through the trees thinking it might be safer.I could hear other school kids and people walking around it.At least I could do it part of the way home, but I would have to dip back into the woods at some point and I still couldn’t shake the feeling I was being followed for some reason.
The Lake was so still. It had a mirror surface when I glanced at it through the trees and it was picturesque if not a little haunting in the mist. I should have been more careful and walked along the shore out of the cover of the trees. There would be people walking around Tatterick Lake even at this early hour and it would be a lot safer. With determination, I decided to make my way to the shore and take a slightly longer route for reasons of safety alone.
Another twig snapped and a bird flapped its wings making me jump again. But I was quickly to find relief when I spied a squirrel scuttling in front of me, churning up the leaves before jumping on to the trunk of a tree. A second coming into my line of vision had me convinced they were all I had heard and I continued on to the Lake.
The sun bright for the time of day but it was lowering. It casts its soft rays over the hills surrounding me on all sides. It didn’t stop the mist moving.It curled around my body giving me the sense of someone being close.But when I looked, I couldn’t see anyone near me. I pulled my school blazer around me feeling a slight chill and dismissed the sensation.
After a while, the sunlight dulled with the arrival of clouds and the mist seemed to grow thicker.The blue sky faded from view.The weather was changing so fast, it made me nervous.Picking up my pace until it was nearly a run, as I made my way around the lake, I dreaded the moment I would have to dip into the trees for the final trek home.Mum would be getting in soon and thankfully, I wouldn’t be alone when I got back.I didn’t fancy being on my own.Something didn’t feel right.
This was the third time I’d felt a presence around me and couldn’t see anything.I was getting more like her every day.Maybe I was sensing spirits like she did now.Tatterick Woods were famous for them.There had been two murders and recently, a school girl had gone missing.Many people had reported seeing apparitions through the years. A cold shiver shook my spine at the very thought.I wasn’t sure I was ready for that.But I suppose I didn’t have a choice like her either.
The feeling of being followed returned and grew stronger. Maybe it was the mist making my imagination run wild. I was midway into writing another one of my vampire stories for that writing competition, and if I really wasn’t sensing spirits, then my mind might be daydreaming up scenarios I could use.Whatever it was, I didn’t like this feeling of unease.Maybe it was time I took a break from writing before I lost all of my bloody marbles.I loved living in the Lake District and the small lakeside town of Tatterick, but there were times when the mist and the dark clouds that often hung low over the mountains and hills made it a scary place to live.
A few moments later, I turned quickly hearing a new kind of sound, a man coughing. My whole body froze. There was somebody near.I hadn’t imagined it. Were they following me? I couldn’t tell. Maybe they were just walking their dog. Nervously, I turned and walked through the trees fast.Then I heard the cough again. My breath caught in my throat when I saw a flash of a young man dressed in a long black coat and boots keeping up with me to my side.He had long dark brown hair tied back in what looked like a black velvet bow underneath a top hat and his face was pale and smooth.I didn’t see much of him but his clothes looked nineteenth century or something weird. Then the image vanished. Where’d he go? I could have sworn . . . I covered my mouth to stifle a scream.
My heart was ready to burst out of my chest when I whirled around see yet more black through the clump of trees to my left. I could hear my own breath panting hard and with a cry I broke out in to a run, determined to escape the figure pursuing me.I was heading deeper and deeper into the woods on the path weaving between them and was in danger of losing my way when I stopped dead in my tracks, seeing my first apparition up ahead.The missing school girl looked the same age as me, sixteen.She was in her beige wool uniform that looked wet and dirty as if she had been dragged through water somewhere.The uniform told me she was from Lancasters, a neighbouring rival private school to my own.She had long red gold hair.One side of her face was covered in blood and her eyes were black.Her hair was matted with dry red blood.
“Help me,” she cried out.
Her eyes suddenly lifted as though she was seeing someone behind me.It was enough to make me alert.As she vanished in front of my eyes, I spun around and found myself directly in the path of a boy from the same school as the ghost.
He was laughing at me and looked as high as a kite.I tried to move around him but he put his arm out to block me.
“And where, do you think, you are going?”
“What do you want?” I snapped listening to my heart thud in my ears.
“You’re from Ridings School.I knew a girl from there once,” he laughed.“She always had her legs open.Always wanting it.Are you the same?”
“Get lost.”
I tried getting around him again but he blocked me and this time grabbed a hold of my waist.Instinctively, I tried to lash out at him, determined to defend myself but my blows with my fists against his arms were futile. He was simply too strong for me. The boy reached for my bag and yanked it off my arm. He threw it to another boy who came running up the path.
“Have a look in there and see if she’s got any money.Then we can ask Harry for another packet.He’ll give it to us if we can get him the money he asked for.”
“I haven’t got any money,” I yelled trying in vain to get my bag back.
The other boy sniffed and laughed, pulling it away from me and rummaged inside.Furious, he was going to take the cash I’d just picked up from Janice at the tea room where I had my weekend job, I fought like hell to get my bag back.At least I was strong enough to break free for a moment and land the first boy a punch to his chest.He let go of me and I started running.Unfortunately for me, he caught up quick.
Grabbing my arm, he pulled me back towards him.I fell to the ground banging my head off of it. He stood over me.
“Found anything yet, Jason?” he asked the second boy who had emptied the contents of my school bag on the ground.
“I can’t find anything, Michael.Make her tell you where she’s put her money.”
“Where is it?” he demanded pushing me back down on the ground when I tried to stand up, relieved they hadn’t found it.
“I told you.I don’t have any cash,” I persisted.He growled at me.
“Maybe there is something else you can give me instead.”
Trying to stand again, I quickly found myself landing back down to the ground with a thud.Michael lay down on top of me, pinning my wrists above my head.I was terrified.He lifted up my skirt and fumbled at the zip on his trousers.I couldn’t help wondering if that was what had happened to the dead school girl before she’d been killed.
With all of my strength I fought him but I couldn’t free myself. Escape seemed impossible and I really thought I wasn’t going to make it. The moment the thought entered my head I heard a strong calm male voice reassure me of my safety. He spoke in an old-fashioned English voice that seemed to belong to another time, stating that he would not allow any harm to befall my person.
“Do not fear Sarah, I will protect you.”
What? It sounded just like the way the Victorian Steampunk hero in my story spoke.Come to think of it, he had long dark brown hair tied back in a black velvet bow. Now I was hearing my character talk to me in my mind? I really was losing it.But I had more to worry about that moment than my sanity.
I gasped out loud when I saw my character Tiberius Shaw’s tall figure with his long dark brown hair blowing in the breeze around his shoulders. He was standing behind my attacker in his long black coat. He took hold of the man’s collar and pulled him backwards as the other boy ran for his life. The action appeared to cause him little effort. My attacker swore at him but when he bared his Vampire incisors and hissed at him the man was struck dumb. His body displayed his terror when it shook like a pneumatic drill. Tiberius addressed him in a dark tone with a smooth even velvet voice commanding the man’s full attention.
“Apologise or I will have no choice but to make you regret your actions,” he demanded like a true Victorian.
My mouth fell open in shock and my assailant remained silent. Tiberius didn’t appear to approve. He flashed his pearly white incisors again and hissed.
