were weak without blood. Many died before they realized that what they truly needed was the blood of a human. But what really began to interest me was that during my research there were reports of another vampire-like being around 1678, over ten years before the first true vampire was supposedly ‘born.’”
Interestingly, when Claude is talking about history, he’s not as annoying as every other moment of his life. I thought asking him to help us was a joke, but maybe Marcus is right that he could be of some assistance.
He pulls out a piece of paper. “Here’s a letter from a sheep farmer from 1680 that I’ve translated. ‘Dear brother, at first it was the sheep. I tell others that they are left bloodless. The bodies are left to rot but with no blood spilled and yet no one believes me. They claim an animal dragged it off after its death. But they’re wrong. There is a monster haunting my fields, so I was forced to draw them into the safety of the barn where no animal could reach them. I closed the doors up and left them in the safety of the straw. When I woke the next morning, the sheep nearly crushed me trying to flee the barn. I have never seen such terror! And when the living were out to pasture, I found more were dead. Most of the deaths were young ones that’d been trampled from fear. The ram, the mean one who attacks everything, was lying in the mow, neck broken, blood gone from it. This creature dragged an adult ram straight up into the mow and drained its blood but spilled not a drop.
“‘But when I finished examining the body, what I realized is that there’d been no forced entry into the barn. I searched the windows, the floor, but there’s no way the creature burrowed its way inside, telling me that it never came inside. It was already inside my barn when I locked the sheep up. Brother, I’m asking you to help me hunt down this monster that harasses my livelihood. For I fear I can’t kill it alone and everyone thinks I’m crazy.’ And then this is the next letter, ‘Brother, I knew I had to do something. Ten more sheep have died since the last letter. My herd is spooked and are fleeing. I spend hours finding them only to see they have deserted their young and have wounds caused from panicking. So I took my best dogs and in the night, I walked out to the barn and threw the door open, prepared to kill the animal myself. When I lifted my lantern, I saw its eyes glowing in the dark. I knew it would kill me if I didn’t run. Brother, I fear I’m next.’”
“W-Why were its eyes glowing?” I ask.
“Probably reflecting off the light of the lantern,” DeGray says.
Claude shakes his head. “No, there are multiple instances where they state that the creature’s eyes glow. That they see the eyes glowing in the dark, even if there’s no light for them to reflect.”
Suddenly, I see those eyes before me. Even in the dark room he’d kept me in, I knew he was there by the way his eyes held on to me.
“Is it too much?” Marcus asks me.
I quickly look over at him and shake my head. “No, no, I’m fine. I promise. But yes… his… his eyes seemed to be glowing.”
“There are more instances. This definitely isn’t the only person who was recorded talking about this blood-feasting creature. It sounds like the vampire started on animals before changing to feeding on people with no remorse,” Claude says.
“The issue with information from that long ago is they weren’t knowledgeable on things, so everything would become exaggerated,” Marcus says. “Do you know how many times I’ve been told I’m shorter than the stories spread about me? I mean, I’m not a short man, but clearly, they thought I was a giant. But we now know there was at least one vampire or even more before the first true vampires were reported. Are there any other descriptions of him?”
Claude shrugs. “A few, but they vary so much. Some said he was inhumanly handsome with a charming smile and soft, gentle features that pulled in young women and men. Others said he looked like a monster, face grotesque and distorted. Some claimed he was as pale as a ghost and others that he was as dark as the night.