KERISSA, my love for a vampire

I remember the strike force of heavy cavalry under command of General Lord Karnack riding out of the city gates. My mother was one of the junior officers. Five supply and support wagons followed the troops. My father rode in the medical wagon. He was a doctor and had volunteered for the mission to be near my mother. I never saw either of them again… At least not alive.

Twice more that summer, while the days were long, strike forces left the city for the caves of Moorluke Most of the soldiers who entered the caves died there. Some of them returned to the city anyway.

That winter, the soldiers began to return. Often they were found wandering mindlessly about the streets, trying to remember the way home. We called it zombie patrol, intercepting the undead before they discovered the way home to their wives and children. A few made it home unnoticed, to feast upon their families.

The deaths of my parents had left me a wealthy and eligible young bachelor in a city that now lacked all the men who had gone into the caves of Moorluke and never returned. I found quite a few young widows eager to share their beds with a man who could protect them and their children if their dead husbands should happen to return. Marriage into an aristocratic family was no longer beyond my expectations.

Then, at the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, Lord Karnack returned with an ultimatum from the wizards of Moorluke. He came to the city gates riding a mummified horse, and surrounded by his officers. Among them was my mother. In a voice like the crackling of old parchment he demanded that the Lord Mayor and his entire family be given up to them.

Perhaps I should have started this tale a year earlier and told how the mayor's son had raped and killed the daughter of one of the Moorluke wizards. Instead of punishing his son, the mayor had begun a war to drive the wizards from their caves and out of the land.

Lest the reader should feel sorry for the wizards, let me emphasize that they had committed many atrocities themselves, and the war was a just one.

My mother had always supported making war on the wizards. Now, she had returned as one of their undead minions. “Hi mom, how is the unlife treating you? How is dad getting along?” She looked up and saw me on the city wall. Slowly she raised an arm in greeting.

The Lord Mayor was not cooperative when it came to turning his family and himself over to the undead outside our walls. Pleas by the citizens to sacrifice himself for the good of the entire populous fell on deaf ears. His conduct was shamelessly obstructionist regarding making peace and restoring normal life and trade. He ordered the few remaining guards to bar the gates and ordered up the militia onto the walls.

The winter months brought cold, boredom and various flu related diseases to the militiamen upon the walls, myself included. Worst of all was the thought of all the young women sleeping alone back in the city. There were no attacks. Evidently the undead had been ordered to patrol around the walls to prevent escapes, and that was all they did.

Slowly the hours of daylight grew longer. The lord mayor seized all the horses in the city, claiming that he planned to lead an attack on the undead. It was an open secret that he and his cronies planned to flee during the hours of daylight, leaving the rest of us to our fate. A “hit list” supposedly existed, with my name on it, of citizens to be arrested or murdered the night before the Mayor fled. No one who might interfere with their departure was to live.

There is no compelling evidence that any of the above was in point of fact true. But, given the circumstances, my actions in the next few nights are understandable if not admirable. The mood of the city could best be described as a sort of passive hopelessness. Citizens watched the undead patrol around our walls at night. By day, they waited to be deserted by the Lord Mayor who would take the remaining fighters with him as an escort.

One short summer's night returning from duty upon the walls, I met Kerissa. She was standing across the street from my house, wrapped in a light cloak. At first I supposed her one of my female friends waiting for me. My second thought was an undead wandering the streets, seeking the way home.

As though divining my thoughts, she said, “I am not a zombie,” and walked over to take my hand. Kerissa has red blonde hair, golden skin and the softest blue eyes I have ever seen. I suspect I fell in love at that very moment. “Your mother sent me to you,” she continued, “to give you love and to save the city.”

Later, as we lay in each other's arms, she took a small amount of blood from my wrist to seal our bargain. That was very good too. No, Kerissa is not a vampire; she is a living girl who has been brought to the very brink of undeath by the wizards of Moorland. She exists in both this world and the hereafter.

Two nights later, I let Lord Karnack and a small band of his undead warriors into the city and led them to the mansion of the Lord Mayor. They took the mayor, his family and cronies and departed for Moorland or Hell before the city awoke.

Kerissa now rules the city. I am kept busy on various committees rebuilding the city's trade and prosperity. Occasionally my parents come to visit. Mother is quite busy training an army of undead to conquer the world. Father, however, seems morose and bored. Evidently there is little demand for a doctor's services among the undead.

The End