Now he started to remember the details of the stories his grandmother had
told him and his sister: "When the last miller had gone insane with fear
and had been found running through the village one night, the pastor and
the mayor wend to see what had scared the poor man that bad. The never came
back. A rescue party was send out the next morning. When they returned all
they wanted to say was that the priest and the mayor were dead and that they
had buried them where they had found them.
The village doctor, who had replaced the mayor, declared the mill and the hill
itself forbidden territory but did not give a reason why.
People then got really curious what the hell had happened up there.
So they got the smith, who had been a member of the rescue party, drunk and
started interrogating him. After a while the smith, a big man, started shivering
and told that when they had found the bodies they didn't have a drop of blood left
in them and bitemarks in their necks..
The villagers all knew the vampire legends that were told from one generation to
the next, and within a few minutes they all went silently to there homes.
Since then, only a few brave, or stupid, man dared to go to the mill and those who
went at night were never seen again.........
But that had all happened at least 70 years ago and Frank, as a modern man, told
himself that maybe a few people had died here in the mill but probably because of an
accident and this was just an other vampire story like he had heard so many in his
childhood years.
But even so he still wished that he hadn't accepted the bet and he started thinking
of a way out of it without loosing face, when he heard what sounded like two stones
grinding together. It seemed to come from the cellar below him but that was impossible
since there was nothing and nobody in the cellar.
Or was there? Maybe one of his friends was hiding down there, thinking he could scare Frank out of the bet ?
Well only one way to find to out but if it was one of his friends Frank would make sure that he would never
try something like that again. Angry he picked up a piece of wood and wend down into the
cellar.
Since one of the conditions of bet had been that he would stay in the dark, the only light he had, was that from the full moon, shining through the holes in the ceiling. In this pale light he had some trouble finding the trapdoor to the cellar but he found it when he tripped over what turned out to be the ring in the trapdoor. He pulled the door up and to his surprise it moved like it was being used daily. He carefully wend down the stairs and started looking around. The little light that shined through the cracks in the ceiling was just enough to see some shapes. In the center of the room was what seemed like a crate but when he got closer it turned out to be a sarcophagus and when he looked the lit moved!
Frank was suddenly paralyzed with fear and watched helplessly how a bony hand lifted the lid
higher and higher until it fell off with a bang and a creature born out of a nightmare rose.
The thing turned around and looked Frank right in the face and opened it's mouth.
Seeing the fangs between the lips of the thing shook Frank back to reality and he started to move
back, away from the horror in front of him. The vampire climbed out of the tomb and followed
Frank. Suddenly Frank felt a wall in his back and couldn't go back anymore. The vampire now
started to move faster and all that Frank could do was wait and curse himself for being so stupid
as to risk his life for a weeks worth of beer.
He saw the vampire ready himself to attack and instinctively he closed his eyes.
He reopened them quickly when a high pitched scream ripped at
his ears and saw that the vampire had impaled himself on the sharp piece wood he still had in
his hand. The vampires body almost immediately started decomposing and Frank finally realist
that he had destroyed the monster that had hunted his village for more then 70 years.
The stench coming from the dead vampire was to much to stand so he threw away the stake he still had in his hands and turned around. At that moment he realized that he had made a big mistake that would cost him his life. Five more vampires, the victims of the one he had destroyed stood behind him and now furious because of the dead of there master they threw themselves forward at there victim who was now unarmed. Frank fought for what he was worth but didn't have a chance against the unholy strength of the undead and his last thought, before the claw's ripped him apart, was of his sister.