A World of Vampires: Volume 2 Read online

  A World of Vampires:

  Volume 2

  © 2015 Dani Hoots

  ISBN for paperback: 978-1-942023-28-9

  ISBN for eBook: 978-1-942023-34-0

  A World of Vampires:

  Asanbosam

  © 2015 Dani Hoots

  ISBN for kindle: 978-1-942023-16-6

  A World of Vampires:

  Lilith

  © 2015 Dani Hoots

  ISBN for kindle: 978-1-942023-20-3

  A World of Vampires:

  Peuchen

  © 2015 Dani Hoots

  ISBN for kindle: 978-1-942023-24-1

  A World of Vampires:

  Aufhocker

  © 2015 Dani Hoots

  ISBN for kindle: 978-1-942023-26-5

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel are fictitious and are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Content Edit by Justin Boyer of A Bibliophile’s Workshop

  Final Edit by Justin Boyer of A Bibliophile’s Workshop

  Cover Design Copyright © 2015 by Daniel Somerville

  eBook Layout and Design by Marcy Rachel

  When I took the job to observe and get to know the Akan people of the Ashanti Empire in West Africa, I had no idea what lay in store for me. I was young then, seeking out adventure wherever I could. It was my first true adventure, the others having been mainly within the country of Britain. Under my mentor Professor Thomas Hart’s guidance, I got to analyze Celtic ruins, Roman baths, old churches, and burial grounds throughout Britain. I loved learning both about the culture and about the physical aspects of humans who dwelt there in the past as well. So when my mentor offered to bring me along on one of his more daring expeditions, I couldn’t refuse the offer. Many of my friends and family thought I was naïve because a woman traditionally wasn’t supposed to move to Oxford, get a degree in Anthropology, nor run off to another country to study another culture. Dismissively, they would say, “Maryanne, traveling is something reserved only for men, not proper ladies like yourself.” I didn’t listen to their pleas as they begged me not to go, I was too free-minded and free-spirited, when it came to wanting to explore the world for myself.

  Oddly enough, I should have heeded their conventional advice. It’s not that I regret traveling or everything that had happened during my journey; it’s that I regret everything that didn’t happen. I was stuck where I was now because of that creature, or maybe this had been my fate all along. I didn’t get to return home, I didn’t get to see my family or friends one last time. I didn’t even get the opportunity to explain to them why I had left in the first place—my thirst for knowledge.

  Back then, there weren’t many who truly understood that feeling or impulse that I had, the need to learn and the need to explore. But my mentor and colleague did. He believed in me and helped support me financially as I went to school. He paid for both my classes and even my lodging. I stayed in a small, single-room apartment next to campus, in the same complex as him. This brought up many other problems with my family. But since I couldn’t pay to be on my own at that time, I learned to live with it. But Thomas had so much he wanted to do, places he dreamed of seeing and studying that I couldn’t resist going with him. His heart was genuine and he always had a smile on his lips. His positive energy was infectious, I had to admit, so I could never find myself leaving his side. I wanted to join him in all his adventures, but regretfully that never happened. Neither of us would ever be traveling again.

  He didn’t have to suffer as I did because it had ended quickly for him, which I was glad for. Why I was chosen for an entirely different fate than him? I don’t know. Maybe so that I could offer up this story, and let people know more about the dangers of both seeking out immorality and the evil that lurks in the jungles of West Africa. Although none of the Akan people really seem to venture into the jungle anymore due to the stories being passed down from generation to generation. They knew about the dangers of the jungle well before what had happened to both me and my mentor. With that cautionary myth ingrained in their minds, they rarely traveled through here, at least not at night. No, it was the visitors and explorers—the foreigners—that needed to hear the truth about the darkness in the jungle. It wasn’t something that anyone should ever take lightly.

  Maybe it was because people just didn’t seriously believe the stories of the monstrous, demonic things that go bump in the night anymore, the folklore that is featured in each and every culture’s mythology that cautions people against venturing too far into dark, uncivilized places. Or maybe it was just ignorance, more and more people seemed to ignore all the signs of the supernatural amongst them, seeing it instead as some kind of practical joke, or evidence of the naivety of the people of the past, the people they think don’t know what they’re talking about. Either way, they were wrong and completely blind to what really went on in the world around them.

  Well I’ll tell you what, every story, every myth, carries some kind of vital truth. There is more out there than meets the eye. Believe me, I have seen it. I am proof of it.

  But enough of my thoughts on the world and what should be, I really ought to be getting back to telling my story. This way, maybe at least a few of you will believe in the darkness, the things that hide in the shadows all around us. My story may seem wild at times, as if what transpired could never physically have happened, and maybe I am bound to exaggerate some details. Simple stories never get told and there is a reason for that. As humans, we seek an adventure, it is in our nature. Although, I believe, that is exactly what got me into all this trouble in the first place.

  It was the year 1937, the same year King George VI and Queen Elizabeth were coronated and took over the grand British Empire. It was a splendid time to be living in England, feeling as if nothing could stop us and that the world could finally be at rest. It wasn’t until a couple of years later when everything would change for the worse, but that isn’t the story I am telling you here. No, this story has nothing to do with that imminent world war.

  My mentor, Professor Thomas Hart of Oxford, proposed the idea of going to study the Akan people earlier that year, and wanted me to be his assistant. He had gone there many years before while it was still under British reign, but now that they had gained their freedom, he was curious about how much it had changed since he’d last been there. He told me that I had some time to think about it but I gave him an immediate yes.

  My friends thought I was crazy, going to a strange land alone with my mentor, whom they would always point out, happened to be a single male. He was fifteen years older than I, not that it mattered back then, but it did matter how much time I had been spending with him alone in the lab, long into the late hours. Out of everyone, it was probably my sister Katherine who supported me the most, even though she still would remark on how much time I spent with Thomas and always said that she was eventually going to confess to our parents that I was spending my evening with an unmarried man. I told her if she did that, then I would have to tell them she had been kissing girls. She would just laugh, neither confessing nor denying whether or not it was true. I knew it was, I had seen her go out with a girl before. It was why I felt like I could connect with her the most because she knew what it was like to go against the norm.

  I had to admit that there were quite a lot more women seeking a profession in the science field than there had been
just years before. But in some circles, and especially in my family, this was thought to be the decline of the British Empire’s way of life as they knew it. Well, the British Empire did decline, but the professional advances of women was hardly the cause of that.

  Once I agreed to the trip, which wouldn’t be happening until the fall, we started to prepare. Thomas and I had a couple of months, since it was still summer in England, or at least what those in England called summer, I swore it rained almost every day that year. Most days we spent doing paperwork and planning out the relaxed questions we planned on asking the inhabitants of the tribe we were observing. Thomas also had me go through his prior work so that I would better understand the culture of that region, which made me feel a bit better about the possibility of adapting to life there. Fortunately, it wasn’t an entirely new culture we were going to, meaning it wasn’t one that we would have to worry about offending or doing the wrong things through pure ignorance. Some of them would even know how to speak English somewhat fluently, and Thomas even knew a bit of their language as well.

  It was strange, at least to me, that I was allowed to call Thomas by his first name. He told me it was because he considered me a colleague, even though I was still in the process of trying to obtain my doctorate and still had a while to go before finishing.

  As the days went by, we double, triple, and even quadruple checked the list of things we needed and made sure we had them all. It wasn’t like we could just click a button and they would be delivered instantly to us. That would have been strange indeed. No, whatever we left behind stayed behind.

  September came and I said goodbye to my friends and my family. Even though they disagreed with me leaving, they didn’t miss the opportunity of saying goodbye. They were afraid I was going to be eaten by some strange animal, if not by the people there. I explained to them again and again that the Akan people were not cannibals and that they were actually under British rule until only two years ago, but they wouldn’t hear it. A lot of people were still naive about the world around them.

  My sister Katherine and I spent one last night together, as she came to Oxford to say her goodbye for the couple of months I would be gone. We stayed up late talking about the world, and about a girl she met recently. It was the first time she actually opened up to me about it and I was very glad she did.

  “She reminds me a bit of you, though,” Katherine said as we lay on my bed together holding hands and facing each other, the only light coming into my quaint apartment was from the streetlamp outside. “Sweet and kind and sees the world as an adventure.”

  “That’s wonderful, I am happy for you,” I smiled. I realized she was telling me this because she, as a lot of others, thought I wouldn’t be coming back ever again. The trip was only for a month, maybe longer depending on how long the project there took to finish. I couldn’t believe that they were worried this much. I had been gone longer when we went to Ireland.

  “What about you,” she laughed. “You aren’t going to run off with some guy from an exotic land, are you?”

  I shook my head, laughing. “No, I wouldn’t ever do that.”

  Her voice became quiet. “Because you already love someone else?”

  I just let out a sigh. “Life doesn’t work like that.”

  “Doesn’t it? I thought you believed that anything was possible.”

  “He would never like me in that way, he has never shown me any interest,” I said.

  “No? I think you would be a bit surprised if you open your eyes for a moment. He cares for you more than you think.”

  We didn’t say another word on the subject of love. It was true, that I felt a connection with Thomas deep in my heart, but even so he was more of a man of work than a man who would ever settle down and get married in the future. I had heard other professors talking about him in those respects, saying that he would never settle down anytime soon, he would always go on living life as an adventure, never staying still for any longer than a second. So I gave up on my fantasies about him swooping me off my feet one day in the lab and realized we would only be partners in science. Besides, it wasn’t like me to ever make the first move.

  The day finally arrived that we would be flying out and I was beyond nervous. My stomach felt like it had tied itself in a knot. I still wasn’t sure as to how the people there would welcome us, whether or not they had animosity towards any white person after winning back their freedom from the British Empire in recent time. Thomas assured me that he had connections there and that they understood we were not there to hurt them, but to help them and seek to understand their culture. His words made me feel a bit better, but I couldn’t help but worry nonetheless. It was still a large commitment, going somewhere for over a month that I had never been before, even though it was one I wanted to take.

  We arrived to where the airplane awaited us. Other people were boarding the plane and I wondered where they were traveling to in the end, what adventures they were going on. They appeared to be upper-class citizens, wanting to see parts of the world that are exotic to them, even though it would probably be still in Europe, or Alexandria.

  “Are you ready for this?” Thomas asked as he helped grab my luggage along with his own.

  I turned to him and found him smiling comfortably. It made a lot of my worry go away. “Yeah, I am ready. This is going to be an adventure I will never forget.”

  He laughed. “Good, I hope that it will. Now, let us board. Have you ever been on a plane?”

  I shook my head. “No, I have not.”

  “Well, it’s a lot of fun.”

  That was a lie. I found out the truth, not too much longer after the plane took off. Funny thing about the 1930’s was the advancement in air travel. Honestly, I would have preferred going by boat. God, I wished we were traveling by boat. In order to get to Alexandria, Egypt, we had to make approximately six stops in the span of three days, and that didn’t include the hop over to West Africa as well. At least when we were flying out of London to France, then Italy, then Greece and Egypt, the plane felt somewhat safe, being part of Imperial Airways. But when we got to Africa, we had to rely on another company with less guaranteed quality service. I couldn’t even pronounce the name of the company, I wasn’t sure if it was French or Italian, maybe even Norwegian, but it was one of the scariest experiences in my life thus far, and that’s saying something. Considering, I had to face the doubt, and myths that my parents had about my supposed “questionable relationship” with Thomas.

  Thomas didn’t seem to mind the fact that the airplane shook and creaked during take-off towards West Africa. I swore the bolts were going to pop right out of the panels and we were going to crash into the desert below, or possibly die before reaching our destination. He sat next to me, eyes closed, as if he could just simply sleep through it all. Had he done this before, I wondered. I knew he had done some traveling, but it was crazy to think he was used to this.

  He opened his eyes and saw the worry in my eyes. He chuckled. “There’s nothing to be afraid of, the planes are older. They have survived this long flying back and forth, don’t worry, Maryanne. We will get there in one piece.”

  For some reason, his response didn’t comfort me. He closed his eyes again, seeming calm and easy in the situation. His graying hair and beard, along with his aging face, told me he had stopped worrying about life and wanted to just enjoy it for what it was worth. He was more afraid of letting opportunities slip away than from any disease or evil that was out there. To lose an opportunity like this was like losing a life. It’s there one minute and then it’s gone the next and you can never get it back.

  The plane felt like it had just dropped a few dozen feet and I let out a shrilled squeak. People stared at me like I was some kind of child and Thomas simply laughed.

  At this point, I really wished we had gone by boat.

  I looked at the window to see everything so far away. I learned through these few days that I hated flying and couldn’t believe that someone would
develop these machines. I tried to imagine what it would have been like to be one of the first ones flying on these and I realized I ended up scaring myself more than I wanted to. I would just wait for those thoughts to return when I was safely on the ground.

  “How many of these planes have you been on?” I asked Thomas, hoping that talking would ease my worry.

  He shrugged. “A few. They are getting more and more popular with time, I have noticed, and safer at that. The first ones weren’t that safe so I tried my hardest to stay away from them. Usually I took the train or boat. These are a lot faster though.”

  “I suppose they are, but they still don’t seem that sturdy,” I glanced back out the window, which was something I wish I didn’t do. My stomach began to hurt.

  “Take a deep breath and don’t worry about it. It will be over soon. Besides, I promised nothing would happen to you on this trip, remember? And I always keep my word.”

  For some reason, that reassurance from him made me feel better about the entire situation. His words and attitude made something immediately calm down inside of me, as if his promise to keep me safe would prove true. I felt my cheeks become a little red, but he had closed his eyes again before he noticed my blush. I was glad for that.

  We arrived to the Ashanti Empire all in one piece. I felt like kissing the ground, but decided that might have been too dramatic of a gesture. It was tempting, though; the ground looked so beautiful up close compared to what it looked like when we were way up in the sky. I didn’t know if I could ever go back into that machine again. I was probably going to end up begging Thomas to take a ship back, even though it would take longer. At least that way we would be able to unwind after our research and not be so tense for six days straight, though I really doubt Thomas was that tense while flying.

  Now that I didn’t feel sick any longer nor worried I was going to die, I took a look around and gasped.