Path of the Vampire forum

The rain hit his skin like it would go right through and the water washed the street like a river would rise. Beneath the sound of the city traffic, Mario couldn't hear his own footfalls. He was so completely wet and numb that he didn’t feel the splashing of the vehicles or the wind that blew so hard that the litter swirled into the air like poor relations of autumn leaves. The streets passed in a frigid blur, he wasn't heading for home, but for an old place everyone said was haunted.

Just the idea had scared him senseless a few years ago, but now he felt drawn to it, it was the only place to go that would make it all make sense. The abandoned house still had a roof and the windows were unbroken, even the local druggies steered clear. Their pin-prick eyes would dilate as they passed and their shuddering only intensified. It was places like this, the kind that make your hair stand on end and teased the skin with goosebumps, that drew Mario in with his phone in hand.

Camera at the ready, he walks passed the threshold. The iron gate screams as it's pushed aside but just barely budges enough to let him through. A sign perhaps? He doesn't heed it. The view through his phone's lens shows him the way to the front door and up the steps. He's blind without it because they shut off the electricity supply years ago. The small window on his phone is his entire visual world as he presses forward. He's recording everything this time.

The old house was just like all the other red-bricks on the street, but the front lawn weeds grew past his knees. If there ever was a path it was gone, buried. The door had that sun-bleached look and the window frames were more bare rotting wood than white paint. Mario bit his lip. A shiver ran through his body like an electric current and the rain blurred his vision. He waded into the late winter greenery, forcing his legs though it. Sucking in a breath as he knocked on the door, knowing there would be no answer. He twisted the handle. The door opened slowly as if a force on the other side was pushing against him. Again he makes a gap just wide enough to slip through and on crossing the threshold the noise of the storm disappears.

Mario's ears resonated with the quiet squeal of the hinges as the entrance hall of the house became visible. He peered through the green hazy darkness, but found no one within it, making his stomach knot. A wave of uncertainty crashed over him.

The entrance hall was roomy, airy and eerie. An uneasy breeze blew down the corridor and grasped him with it chilly touch. Its fingers circled around his body pulling his shoulders tight together as he huddled into himself for warmth. The furthest door from him had been left ajar, drawing his focus into the swelling darkness. His mind told him not to move, but his body dragged him to it like a moth to a flame. Every step he took was met by a discordant shriek from the worm rotted floor boards.

He rests his hand on the rough paintwork that coats the door and pushes. Rough wooden splinters cut into his palm, shards of paint crumble to the floor. The hinges squeal as though they are a warning, but their plea is silenced as he pushes it shut. Right then there's a sound of small, quick footsteps. Mario turns sharply, presses his back against the door, puts his phone between him and his company like a shield. In the dim infrared, two discs shine back at him from an arm chair but he quickly notes that it's just a cat.

“******* hell,” he seethes. “You nearly scared the balls off me.”

As he's making light with the cat though, it's apparent that the cat is just staring at him. Maybe through him. Maybe behind him. Whatever it is, he's unnerved by its unfathomable gaze.

“So… is this good hunting territory or what? Bet there's loads of critters just… err… crittering about.” The cat just stares like it's frozen in time. “So why not go hunting or something? Somewhere else. Ok?”

Mario steps off and walks into the room again. His eyes are watching the eyes watching him even as he pivots left. He's never been this terrified of a cat before and it makes him laugh nervously.

“I am totally editing this bit out of the video... unless you turn into a witch. Please don't turn into a witch.”

It’s when Mario’s thinking that the cat is going to cast a spell or curse him or transform itself into a more malevolent beast that a woman’s voice calls to him from the dark and dust. He jumps and spins to face the sultry dangerous sound. The rotted floorboards howl out his surprise so he doesn’t have to. He can’t help the knee-jerk reaction because he’s watched too many movies and seen too much unbelievable ****. He’s got the camera trained on her and he’s looking through the screen like he’s facing Medusa. It’s like he can’t look her straight in the eye in case she turns him to stone and his statue is added to the freaky decor for the rest of eternity.

Through his camera, he sees her standing like a solid ghost dressed in oddly beautiful clothing. The furniture and the wallpaper that peeled with the rising damp and decay and old age became slightly out of focus, like a poorly taken photograph. It could have been the technology on his phone or something dark and mystical which made the lens zoom and focus in on her alone. Mario doesn’t know. But he does know that he’s probably in deep **** here. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d gotten into a scrap with someone over the rights to film in private property. Assuming she was a person and not an apparition or a figure of evil. They could be extremely territorial and the crescent scar on his arm peeking out from under his rolled up shirt sleeve burns at the reminder.

Mario was getting the chills again making him feel like he had a fever but he swallow down his fear. “Heh,” he mumbles with a dry mouth. “Sorry I didn’t know anyone else was here.”

He steps away from her cautiously. This didn’t smell right. The calls of the birds echoed strangely outside the window and above the rain like they were perched on the decking right outside waiting. He glances at the cat again. It’s still there and leering at him but he decides to work it into the conversation as if could make this all better. Like adding something normal into a paranormal situation could be like shining a torch into the night and chasing away the things that went bump.

“Is the wi… the cat. Does the cat belong to you? It’s nice, yeah. Cute.” He goes to offer her a hand but remembers that he doesn’t want to get close enough to touch her so he swirls his hand around and turns it into a wave at face height. “I’m Mario, by the way.”

His eyes never leave the woman’s face. Her face changed and he could see that some sort of nerve had been hit. However, he had no idea what nerve it was or what it meant. She just has that glassy-eyed look on her face for a moment, like she’s lost in a memory and Mario gets lost looking at her. She’s clearly terrifying, but he can’t turn tail and run. It’s like being stood in front of a tiger at the zoo, but someone took the bars away and all Mario can do is try to keep his distance to stay out of the danger zone. He wouldn’t be able to turn tail and run because she would pounce on him, take him down like a wounded monkey. The best way to deal with predators is to show respect, keep your distance, and never turn your back. Right? His Jungle Book knowledge was telling him to find something he could set on fire to wave in her face to scare her off but that is because he is an idiot.

What she has to say about witches makes his head tilt to the side though as he considers it. It’s like a child thinking about how he can make the colour green out of two blobs of yellow and blue acrylic paint. All thoughts of defending himself make a sharp exit out of his left ear and he hums to himself. What he knows about witches could fill a post-it note and this mysterious woman seems to be the expert on the subject. He wants to ask her questions suddenly and hear more about what she might have to share on the paranormal but there’s no time. The woman with no name scares the spooky cat away with a glance and starts to probe him with an unsettling question.


“Oh this?” he says and motions to his phone. “Nothing much. Just a day in the life of someone stupid.” He stops to think. “Say, I can credit you if you want and link you to it. If you want to. Not as the someone stupid I mean but the person proving the other person stupid by being here. Heh… I’m rambling.”

Mario's mind was starting to fail, like an engine that turns over and over, never kicking into action. He couldn't formulate a single thought. Every action could lead to pain or worse and there is no way out of this house that isn't through the window behind him. There's no way out. He brings his hand to his throat, claws nervously at his own skin with stubby nails which just leaves soft pink marks in his fair flesh. He glances at the floor, no trap door to lead him out of here either and the fact that he's willing to go into the basement of a haunted house to escape her shows just how desperate he is.

His eyes go to the walls, the windows and doors. He breaths. There is a chance. There just has to be. Maybe he can appeal to her sense of reason and show her he isn't worth the trouble. Because he's a nice guy despite his quirks and certainly worth more alive and onside than buried beneath this fucked up house. RIGHT?!

“Uh…” He pushes out the words and feels them scratch his throat on release. “I'm from Ottawa. So just a hop, skip, and a jump away. And well. This is going to sound stupid to you but. I'm really interested in the paranormal so I came here. Started filming.” He points with his phone at the house around him. “Because you always need proof or else no one will believe you.”

Mario isn't convinced that asking any questions about her will help but he's working on building empathy between them. The more he looks at her the more he thinks she reminds him of the comic book character Rogue. She is also dressed from head to toe in form fitting clothing but it's to stop her from getting too close to people. Because her power is a curse to her as it drains the life out of everyone she touches. It must have been isolating. Lonely. Mario sighs.

“So… what are you doing here?”

Being in this spooky house with the mysterious woman is like resting in an old shed while a gale rages outside. In her presence time itself becomes slower and colder. Mario didn't know who or what this woman was but she terrified him as much as any ghoul had. And it makes him think of his mother and what she used to say about fear.She always said the root of all fears, the rotten root of mankind, is the "fear of need" and our task is to meet this fear with the same resistance a rock shows to wind - that the resolved person lets fear blow around them and remains resolute in a will to be kind. Many things are worse than fear. The truth, for him, in those words are a warning that fear can change who people are inside, make then compromise where they should stand firm.

The fear sits quietly in him regardless and then suddenly there's footsteps coming from above them. What starts as a contortion of his stomach becomes a feeling of being smothered by an invisible hand. He suddenly forgets about the danger in front of him and directs his camera to the ceiling. Dust spills down as each heavy footstep falls. It sounds like a 300 lbs man is walking through from bedroom to bedroom. Mario's breathing becomes erratic, deep, then shallow. He fights it. He fights the feeling of his body writhing to be free or shut down entirely. His heart is thumping so strongly in his chest that it's competing with the sound of her voice and the stomping above.

He remembers she's there again and whips around to see that she's gotten closer, only like a foot away. The look of shock on his face is cartoonish with the ways his blue eyes are like saucers in his head. He wants to laugh when she said he's brave because he is feeling anything but. Mario wants to get the hell out of there.

“Friend of yours?” he asks and desperately hopes she'll say it is even though that would make two of them and only one of him.