NIGHTS OF HALLOW

Perdita swung the knife and positioned its tip at Mrs. Perkin. She warned ”One more step and I’ll do to you what happened to your husband when he tried the same thing.”

”W...what did you do to my husband, you witch?!” Mrs. Perkin tore at her clothes in frustration and fright. Seeing the knife pointed at her and the crazy look Perdita now had with her red eyes, she couldn’t say she was not scared. She started regretting her decision to come and confront the siblings. She thought it was a wise thing to do. But now, her wise decision had backfired on her.

Vampires no matter if the person was turned or not, when they are angry or bloodthirsty, exhibited a certain wildness in them that made them look feral. And a bite from them wouldn’t guarantee that the person bitten will live to see the day again.

Mrs. Perkin shrunk back and fell to the floor. She murmured ”So everything my husband wrote was true. Every detail about you two was true. That is why you took him to God knows where!”

”What writing are you talking about?” Marco and Perdita questioned at the same time. How could they miss such detail? But then, how would they have known he was leaving the account of every investigation he did?

”What writing?” Mrs. Perkin questioned back. ”Do you think I will show or give it to you? My husband made sure to leave evidence behind before you abducted him. If I had known he was investigating you two, I would have helped him out so you two will be exposed.”

Perdita laughed, ”And did you think you would still be here right now? You could have been in the same predicament your husband is in right now. So don’t worry, he’s very much alive and I’ll soon send you to him.”

”You lied to me, Perdita. You and your brother lied to us all. You pretended to be humans so the villagers will accept you, which we did. We welcomed you two, thinking you were two homeless children because of the massacre. I should have known that you two were liars!”

Perdita continued swinging the knife back and forth in her hand. She said, ”We all lie, Mrs. Perkin. It all depends on what we speak and the severity of its action it might bring or follow. You said we lied to you and the villagers? Yes, that is true. I won’t deny it. But have we caused any harm to the villagers since we started living here?”

”My husband!” Mrs. Perkin pointed out angrily.

Perdita negatively shook her head ”Your husband is out of the equation. He kept poking his nose into our business and he deserved what I did to him.”

Perdita paused and bitterly smiled ”Do you know what it means to watch your family and loved ones die on you at a young age? I was barely 10 and my brother was just 7 when they killed our family. Do you know what it means to watch as their lives slipped away after turning into vampires? Of course, you don’t know. You don’t and have not experienced the hardship and trauma that followed after.”

”We were children trying to survive back then before we were caught again and were finally turned into vampires. You don’t know the pain we went through during the transformation. The trauma of turning into something that was the reason behind the death of your family. We did everything to survive, went through hell, and came back as we fought the urge to kill humans and drink blood.”

”We vowed we would never drink human blood because it felt as if we were drinking the blood of our family members. But it was hard. Always on the run from getting killed coupled with the transformation and also trying not to drink blood was hard. That was when we found this village. They were kind and welcoming but that was because they thought we were humans.”

”It has been a good 10 years since we started living in this village without causing any harm or trouble to anyone, but your husband suddenly decided to disrupt the peace we had. We did and tried everything we could to stay low profile but it proved to be a fruitless effort because of your husband always followed us around.”

”Mrs. Perkin,” Perdita gently called the older woman who was quiet listening to everything Perdita was saying. ”Tell me, if you were in our position and predicament and someone like your husband was bent on exposing you to get you killed when you have been good and not causing trouble to the villagers. Tell me, what would you have done, if you were us? What will you do to your husband?”

Mrs. Perkin kept quiet still sitting on the floor with a complicated look. After a while, she spoke, ”Do not ask me because...”

”Because you don’t know how it feels like when you try everything in your power to survive and some annoying pest tries to take away the little life you have from you!” Perdita angrily cut her off from completing her sentence.

”It still doesn’t justify what you two did. You are vampires and vampires are bad omens to humans.” Mrs. Perkin interjected arrogantly.

Perdita sighed and dropped the knife she was holding on the table. ”You speak as if humans are all righteous. Funny how we were once humans but are now labeled as bad omens. Since my nine years of being a vampire, I can’t help but say that humans are more selfish and senseless than vampires. And you Mrs. Perkin have witnessed and had a taste of their spitefulness.”

”No matter what you say to make yourself look pitiful, it doesn’t justify your actions!” Mrs. Perkin spat with so much hatred she could conjure.

”I won’t argue and neither will I agree with you on that, Mrs. Perkin,” Perdita replied and stood up. ”Now let’s not waste each other’s time and get this done over with.”

”I’ll give you an option that your husband was not fortunate to get from me because of his stupid actions. One, it is either you give us your so-called evidence your husband left and shut your big mouth about everything that happened. Or, I send you to your husband. Which one is it? The choice is yours.”

”I choose none. I’ll rather die than close my mouth. Where did you keep my husband?! I’ll make sure the villagers will know about you two!” Mrs. Perkin threatened.

Perdita shook her head ”I’m sad your wishes won’t come to pass. We are all trying to survive and I won’t let anyone destroy our lives. We don’t cause anybody harm. But since you and your husband decided to be our first victims, I’ll have to shut you both up. Don’t worry, I’ll gladly make the decision for you.” She said and walked towards where Mrs. Perkin sat on the ground.

”W...what are you doing?” Mrs. Perkin shrieked back in fear.

”I’m sending you to your husband. Send my greetings to him.” Perdita spoke and grabbed Mrs. Perkin by the neck. She used her fist to hit Mrs. Perkin’s neck making her drop unconscious in her arms.

Perdita slowly laid Mrs. Perkin’s body unconscious body on the ground before standing up.

Marco who had been silent finally spoke, ”What are we going to do now?” He was trying to be strong for both of them, but fear was evident in his eyes and the way he spoke which Perdita noticed.

Perdita nervously wrung her hands on her skirt and exhaled deeply, ”I don’t know, Marco. Everything is becoming worse with each passing day. I’m scared, Marco.”

”Don’t fret, sis. We will surely find a way out” Marco assured and reached out to hold Perdita.

She nodded and exhaled again ”I’ll find a way to contact Sthena and also look for the evidence Mrs. Perkin was talking about.”

As easy as it was to quieten Mrs. Perkin now, she knew the older woman will surely wake up and hell will break loose again. The only person she could confide in now was Sthena who she was getting indebted to every time she had a problem. Did he have a vision of the troubles that awaited them when he wrote her that letter? What was she going to do now?!