Can't be a horror writer without a vampire story. Here it comes.

 

What manner of a dream is this? William Bradford thought as he lay still in a shroud of darkness. The black shadow that hung over him left him no room for vision; In fact, he thought for a moment that he may be blind. As he lay trying to grasp his surroundings, a cold chill swept through the darkness and crept through his veins. He would have shivered if he could have, but he was taken aback by the sudden realization that he could not feel the blood that should be pushing through those same vessels at this moment. That knowledge should have sent his heart leaping through his chest, but instead came nothing.

"Where am I?"

As the words left his lips, he realized that no breath had escaped from his lungs with them.

"You are only dreaming." William told himself, but as he tried to force himself awake, a sound echoed over his head.

Shwoop-fwugh, Shwoop-fwugh. Shwoop-fwugh.

William recognized the chorus playing above him, or at least, he knew he should recognize it. He had heard that sound before; He knew that he had, but he could not remember where, or even when.

The soft rain of unidentified noise continued above William as he frantically began to search his mind for answers. Where am I? What is going on? Who am I? As that last thought rang out, William’s body forced itself upwards. Thick wood resisted it after a few inches, and the sound of a man’s voice came through as William slumped back onto the pillow that he realized had now been propping up his head.

"What the hell?" The man’s voice shouted. William could barely hear it, it sounded like someone shouting from downstairs in his mansion.

Mansion? What mansion?

William cut his mind off before it had the chance to produce more unanswerable questions. Instead, his hands reached out to his sides and above him, feeding him the necessary information about his surroundings. He was encased in a thick wood, and it did not take his mind long to deduce the measurements. He was in a coffin.

"He’s not dead!" William heard the muffled voice shout out from above. As the voice shouted, a strange-but somehow familiar- pain shot through his abdomen. It filled his body with an urgent need to escape this trap, to slay those who had set it, to taste their blood as it poured from their wounds.

Who am I?

William’s thoughts escaped him, replaced by a rage that he could not remember, yet somehow could not forget. His fists balled into fleshy hammers and he began to pound upon the wooden crypt above him, smashing it to pieces as his rage and confusion grew. He heard the shouts of men above him as the pieces of the coffin broke free from each other. Thin rays of the setting sun swept through the cracks in the coffin, burning his exposed flesh as his will to escape escalated to a profound revelation. If he failed to free himself soon, the setting sun would burn him to cinders.

William didn’t have time to realize where that strange thought came from, but he recognized it instinctively as truth, and his strength rose to new heights. He could hear more men now, their voices shouting warnings to each other as the final remains of his resting place broke away. William looked up, but the blood-red sun in the background caused him to shield his eyes. The top of his hand began to smoke as he did, and he shouted something out in his agony. He was not sure of what the words meant, he couldn’t even say for certain what language it was that he had spoken, but it caused a gasp to echo out from the men that had gathered alongside the grave.

"Save the King!" One of the men cried out. William thought he recognized the voice, but somehow the connection in his memory would not fully hold, and the thought faded. Finally, the setting sun disappeared behind a set of thick gray clouds, and the burning that had now nearly encompassed his entire frame dissipated. After a few blinks of his eyes, William looked up from the pit of dirt.

A dozen men stood along the edge of the grave, each wearing a set of bronze plate mail that had been stained to black. A massive red bat had been emblazoned across the chests, its wings spanned from one shoulder to the other and its body down to the belly. William knew this symbol, but again his memory failed him.

"Who am I?" William said slowly. The depth of his voice sent shivers down the backs of the men who gathered above him, William sensed. All except for one. A tall man with a thick beard and eyes that looked to have been tempered from steel. As William looked at the man and felt the urgency to escape from this place subside; the man jumped down into the pit with him, unhindered by the bulky armor he wore.

"You are William, King of the Damned," The man began as he dropped to one knee in front of William who eyed him cautiously. There was something strange about the man, his eyes seemed lifeless, like something had been stripped from inside him. Perhaps his soul?

William looked closer at the man who knelt before him, then up to the still uneasy men that held their ground above. Their skin was paled. That was it, that what was wrong with them. The paleness was not from a mere lack of sunlight either, it was as if they had never been exposed to it at all.

"Who are you?" William breathed.

"We are your servants, my Liege," The kneeling man said. "Have you forgotten us so soon?"

William gazed at the man with morbid curiosity. There was something familiar about him, about all of this, but try as he might, no answer was forthcoming.

"Your skins, they are as pale as bone," William said. "Why is this."

The man’s stare turned to a look of worry as he gazed at William. William could tell that it was really a look of confusion, coupled with worry, but that held no credence with him.

The man glanced up at the surrounding men as if searching for an answer of his own. Finding blank stares, he turned back to William.

"My Liege, we have been like this since . . . Since the day death took us . . . Since the day you took us."

William ran his hand up to his chin. What manner of a dream is this? He thought again.

"This is no mere dream, my Liege," The kneeling man answered. William locked eyes with the bearded man. How did he know what I was thinking?

"It is my gift, my Liege. It is the power that you bestowed upon me." The man’s sturdy face took on a more desperate look and his voice matched it as he continued.

"Do you not even remember me?"

William looked at the man again, trying desperately to shake loose some memory from his mind, anything, but it was a futile effort.

"What is your name?"

The bearded man’s eyes sunk to the ground and he answered with a heavy sigh. "My mortal name was Joshua . . . but you used to call me, brother."