FEVER

We had heard about the sickness for weeks. Rumors of people dropping in the streets- being run over by carriages and left to rot, no one would touch them for fear of being infected. In just hours whole villages were seeing symptoms, hundreds dead in days. I lived in a small farming village with my mother and father. We were secluded where we lived; there were only four houses spread out over 20 miles. People from the cities would drift by on their way to safety and tell us what theyd heard about the fever. But no one else came after a while. Not even the mail man. A week, a month, two months passed and we hadnt seen a soul. My father and mother decided to leave. But I told I couldnt come, the family that lived on the last farm east was very dear to us and they had small children. I told my mother I would go to see if they were okay and ask if they would come with me, after that I would follow my parents south to where my aunt lived. Mother cried but I would not be swayed. I watched them leave as the sun rose over the dirt road. I had a twenty mile walk in front of me, and so I began. There are those who doubt my story after this point. Some say I am simply lying, others speculate that I had the fever and what I saw was only in my mind. I know I wasnt sick. I wish it was all a terrible hallucination but I know what happened was real. It is midnight on the third of November, 1723. I am a condemned woman; I am scheduled to be hanged in the morning. I have no reasons left to lie. This document will be seen only after Im dead. Let this be my last testament. (Footsteps) As I walked the path I noticed a distinct silence in the trees. Sounds I had heard all my life were simply gone. And then I heard her. She was coming down the path, a smile arched across her face. She moved lightly, almost skipping. Not a care in the world. A large crimson stain sat dark at the frayed neck of her dress. Blood. Are you okay miss? I asked as she passed by. It wasnt until she was only inches from me that I recognized her. The look in her eyes and that terrible smile made it hard for me to notice at first but now I could see it was Mrs. Shannen, she lived on the farm closest to ours. She had never been one to smile. She didnt look at me when I talked to her, only continued to sing. I assumed then that she had the illness and her mind was gone. I watched her for a few moments and then turned and kept going. After about a minute I looked back. She stood about a hundred yards away with her back to me; her head was turned sideways, listening. I nearly ran the rest of the way. I arrived at the house just as the sun began to set. I knew something was wrong as soon as I laid my eyes on it. There were no cows in the pasture, no goats. I jogged to the front door and knocked. Nothing inside moved. (Door Creak) Hello?

Flies buzzed in the kitchen where dirty dishes sat out exposed, maggots slithered on the plates finishing what was left of a week old dinner. A trail of blood led to the back of the house where the bedrooms were. I moved slowly, the smell was even worse here. Mr. Peters lay on the floor beside the bed, his neck was torn and blood had pooled black beneath him. Hed been dead for days. Something moved in the closet. I hadnt seen the children; I had to check, though I have to admit at this point I was terrified beyond description. I tried to keep quiet as I opened the door. It was the eldest, James. He was cowering in the corner. I took him to his room and gave him some of the water and food I had brought. I asked him what happened; he told me the whole story. A few weeks ago a drifter had come to town with the fever. Mrs. Shannen let him stay in her barn; he told her it wasnt the illness that made him sick now, but that he had been attacked by a vampire on the road. She thought he was delirious. After he died she and her husband buried him in the cemetery. A few days later Mr. Shannen told his wife he had seen the man outside. The drifter said he needed his shoes. They had fallen off while they were transporting his body. After a few moments the man left. For the next few days they were plagued by knocks at their door during the night. One of these nights Mr. Shannen had had enough- he went out with his gun and told the man to leave he would shoot him in he didnt go. The man began to laugh hysterically. Mrs. Shannen didnt see what happened but when morning came she went out and saw her husband dead on the ground. James told me that a few days prior to my arriving, Mrs. Shannen came asking for help, she said her husband had crawled out of his grave and was trying to get into the house. James parents turned her away thinking she was either sick or telling the truth, either way they were too scared to open the door. Mrs. Shannen returned not long after, that big grin, those wild eyes. She smelled of rot. She would come in the night and sing songs outside their windows. He told me his eight year old sister Elizabeth was the first to die. For reasons no one could understand she had gotten out of bed just before dawn and walked outside. He remembers having dreamt of a girl screaming for help, when he awoke he realized the sounds were real. They found her a few hours later sitting against a tree a few yards into the woods. All the joints in her body had been twisted the wrong way. Before they buried her, his father bound her broken wrists with rope and salted the earth above her. After a few days of hiding in the house, they ran out of supplies and decided to leave. His mother was killed while trying to gather the goats- James and his father took their guns and searched the woods for the vampire but there was no sign of it. They left her body where it fell and followed the road north. When night came, they found themselves surrounded. They would hear laughter coming from the forest and running feet cutting across the path behind them. James swears he heard his mother calling for him to come into the woods. In a panic they headed back to the house, his father was briefly attacked along the way and by the time they got inside he was just barely breathing. I asked James if he knew who it was that had killed his father and he told me it was his sister, six days after shed died. I didnt know what to make of it, in the end I decided it didnt matter if it was true or not, James was weak and needed help. There were still usable supplies at my house. We had to leave.

Its safer in the day. He told me. He wouldnt budge. He wouldnt let me bury his father either but at least he let me put the body outside. The silence was still palpable. There were no crickets, not even a gust of wind to make me feel better. It was as if someone had taken our little village and cut it out from the rest of the world. Before I went back inside I scanned the tree line expecting to see only darkness. There was a small purple dress obscured by low branches near the edge of the forest. At first I was elated. I could tell it was Elizabeth, she was caked in dirt, I thought because she had gotten lost in the woods and finally found her way out. I took a few steps toward her; she returned the favor and started walking to me. Her bones were all broken; she limped across the road like a puppet on strings. Each step she took would tear a new piece of flesh or crack another bit of bone. With absolute horror I studied her face; she only smiled and held out her arms to me, wrists still bound. I ran back inside. James and I barricaded ourselves in the back bedroom and waited. I turned the lantern down to just barely a spark. We sat in the dark and listened. MOTHER: James... Mommys waiting. I could see tears dripping down his cheeks. Elizabeth put her eyes between the cracks in the woodELIZABETH: Dont you miss us brother? James begged her to leave. She said she would but first she had to tell him something. He leaned in near the wall and she whispered in his hear. Then she left as promised. James sat without saying a word. He picked up the lantern and raised the flame. I asked if he was okay. He opened the globe and poured the oil down his throat. In seconds he was covered in flames. I screamed- I wanted to help him but there was no way. The room was overcome in just moments. I rushed to escape - smoke filled every inch of the space. I couldnt see, couldnt breathe. By the time I stumbled outside it was almost dawn. I was so overcome by the smoke in my lungs that I lost consciousness. When I awoke there was nothing left of the house or of James. A gash ran across my wrist, I had lost a lot of blood in the night but I could still move. I tore a piece of my dress and wrapped the wound. When I could walk I wandered north towards the closest town. Somewhere along the way I heard the light ringing of a tiny bell. I came across the cemetery and saw that the bell I was hearing was from a grave. Someone inside was pulling it as if to say they had been buried alive. I walked to it and as I did, another bell began to ring, then another and another. I ran and never looked back. I thought Id hurt my wrist while leaving the house but now I realize that while I was unconscious, lying on the grass, they fed In a few hours Ill be put to death for something I did not do. The people here think themselves civilized. They dont believe in monsters. I tried to warn them but they wont listen, wont take precautions. Theyll bury me tonight, and tomorrow morning Ill be ringing my own bell.