VampNoMore
Why did a vampire hunting company stake a living human? A darkly humorous short story.
This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 (Attribution, Non-Commercial, No Derivatives).
VampNoMore
by Trevor Mendham
Dear Mrs Jefferson,
I am writing on behalf of the VampNoMore Corporation to offer our sincere condolences on the unfortunate loss of your husband. I have undertaken a detailed enquiry into the facts of the case and can now explain how this incident came about.
The sequence of events began when we were informed by a reliable source that there was vampire activity in your town. There were three men in the area who fitted the suspect profile, one of whom was your late husband. Our Regional Office assigned a dedicated operative to investigate each suspect.
The operative working on your husband’s case began covert surveillance and kept detailed logs in accordance with legal requirements. We are proud of our high standard of regulatory compliance and this is in part what makes us the country’s leading vampire elimination agency. Copies of all records are attached, however for the purpose of this cover letter I will summarise their content.
During the first week of the operation your husband was observed leaving your home in the early hours of the morning no less than four times. Our operative suspected that he had been lacing your night time drink with sleeping pills. This suspicion has been confirmed by you as partially correct; you were indeed taking medication to help you sleep but this had been prescribed by your doctor. Unfortunately our operative was unable to ascertain this fact at the time due to the confidentiality of medical records.
On the first night, your husband was observed walking through the town in a manner described by our operative as ‘suspicious’; he appeared to have no set destination but wandered through various streets seemingly at random. He kept mainly to dark alleyways and frequently stopped to observe young women from a distance. After around half an hour he appeared to settle on a ‘victim’ (our operative’s word). He approached her and the two spoke quietly. They were standing beneath a streetlamp and our operative could see her face clearly. He reports that although she was smiling, the smile appeared strained and false. Nonetheless, after less than a minute she left with your husband. Our operative considered the speed with which he persuaded her was probably due to the vampire’s well known mesmeric abilities.
The operative followed the couple to the woman’s dwelling place where, he reports, your husband stayed for about an hour before leaving with a smile on his face and returning home.
On the second night your husband chose a different woman who was again persuaded to take him home. When your husband left, our operative decided to wait near the house. After just a few minutes the woman came out again, looking tired but otherwise well, and returned to where your husband had met her as if nothing had happened. The natural assumption was that she had been partially drained and her memory of the encounter erased.
The other nights followed a similar pattern. Your husband would leave your house in the early hours and wander the town before deciding on a woman. Although he chose a different one each night, all had similar characteristics. In particular all wore large amounts of make up and had generously sized breasts; our operative has provided extremely detailed accounts and copious long range photographs of these physical attributes.
On the fourth and - regrettably - final night our operative decided to test a theory. Instead of photographing your husband surreptitiously when he left the woman’s residence, the operative approached him directly, holding up the camera in clear view. This is not a standard operating procedure but we hope you will agree that it showed great initiative. On seeing the camera your husband covered his face with his arm, snarled and ran into the darkness.
This reluctance to be photographed was taken as definitive evidence of vampirism and our operative reported accordingly. With no evidence against the other suspects our Regional Manager signed off a warrant on your husband and a Stake Team was immediately despatched. This resulted in the unfortunate incident in your bedroom and the demise of your husband. We will, of course, pay for replacement of the blood-stained bedclothes.
You will be relieved to hear that we have since ascertained the identity of the real vampire and he has been terminated. We hope it is some consolation that there is no permanent stain on your late husband’s character.
Having examined the records in this case I have concluded that we followed all regulatory requirements in both letter and spirit. As such we cannot be held legally liable for the regrettable death of your husband. However I do accept that - with hindsight - perhaps our choice of personnel could have been better. It was possibly not a good idea for us to assign to the investigation to a new male operative only sixteen years of age. We will be updating our procedures accordingly.
We know from experience that following an untimely death of this sort the spirit of the deceased may be unquiet. As a gesture of goodwill I am enclosing - without prejudice - a voucher for 50% off an exorcism from our sister company HauntNoMore.
Yours etc,
VampNoMore Corp
The End
Author’s Notes:
This story originally appeared in my self-published collection Rest In Fear 2.
I don’t what it is with me and vampire stories. I like them, honestly I do. It’s just that whenever I try to write one it ends up getting silly... This story started out as a serious look at the risks of staking the wrong person then somehow became what it is.