Free A Vampire Christmas Carol by Sarah Gray

these words, the specter took its wrapper from the table, and bound it round its head, as before. Scrooge knew this, by the smart sound its teeth made when the jaws were brought together by the bandage. He ventured to raise his eyes again, and found his supernatural visitor confronting him in an erect attitude, with its chain wound over and about its arm.
    The apparition walked backward from him, and at every step it took, the window raised itself a little, so that when the specter reached it, it was wide open.
    It beckoned Scrooge to approach, which he did. When they were within two paces of each other, Marley’s ghost held up its hand, warning him to come no nearer. Scrooge stopped. It was not so much in obedience, as in surprise and fear, for on the raising of the hand, he became aware of confused noises in the air: incoherent sounds of lamentation and regret, wailings inexpressibly sorrowful and self-accusatory. The specter, after listening for a moment, joined in the mournful dirge and floated out upon the bleak, dark night.
    Scrooge followed to the window, desperate in his curiosity. He looked out.
    The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither in restless haste, and moaning as they went. Every one of them wore chains like Marley’s ghost. Some few (they might be guilty governments) were linked together; none were free.
    Many had been personally known to Scrooge in their lives. He had been quite familiar with one old ghost, in a white waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe attached to its ankle, who cried piteously at being unable to assist a wretched woman with an infant, whom it saw below, upon a doorstep. The misery with them all was, clearly, that they sought to interfere, for good, in human matters, and had lost the power forever.
    Below them on the street ran creatures black and shrouded with mist, something like the thing that had followed Scrooge home the night he had gone to Marley’s grave almost seven years ago. They came and went, scuttling along the dark street, and while he watched, one snatched a child from a mother’s arms and disappeared into the night, leaving the mother a weeping heap upon the snow.
    Whether these creatures faded into mist, or mist enshrouded them, he could not tell. But they and their spirit voices faded together, and the night became as it had been when he walked home from the tavern.
    Scrooge closed the window, and examined the door by which the ghost had entered. It was double-locked, as he had locked it with his own hands, and the bolts were undisturbed. He tried to say “Humbug!” but stopped at the first syllable. And being from the emotion he had undergone, or the fatigues of the day, or his glimpse of the invisible world, or the dull conversation of the ghost, or the lateness of the hour, or the absurd talk of vampires, he found himself much in need of repose. He went straight to bed, without undressing, and fell asleep upon the instant.

STAVE 2
    THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS AND MORE VAMPIRES

13
    W hen Scrooge awoke, it was so dark that looking out of bed, he could scarcely distinguish the transparent window from the opaque walls of his chamber. He was endeavoring to pierce the darkness with his eyes, when the chimes of a neighboring church struck the four quarters. He listened for it to strike the hour.
    To his great astonishment the heavy bell went on from six to seven, and from seven to eight, and regularly up to twelve, then stopped. Twelve. It was past two when he went to bed. The clock was wrong. An icicle must have got into the works. Twelve o’clock.
    He touched the spring of his repeater, to correct this most preposterous clock. Its rapid little pulse beat twelve and stopped.
    “Why, it isn’t possible,” said Scrooge, “that I can have slept through a whole day and far into another night. It isn’t possible that anything has happened to the sun, and this is twelve at noon.”
    The idea being an alarming one, he scrambled out of bed,