"I'm a two hundred fifty year-old vampire" excerpt from Dark Journeys anthology

Excerpt from A Problem with Werewolves. Dan's girlfriend presents him with an unpleasant surprise.

Monique stepped back, and her eyes captured mine. “I’m a vampire.”

A three-word statement of the impossible, I thought. I searched her face but failed to detect any sign that she was joking or subjecting me to some test.

“I’m a two-hundred-and-fifty-year-old vampire. I was born in a small chateau not far from Grenoble. A distant relative attacked me when I was thirty years old and made me into an undead creature. After that horrible evening, I lost my husband and two daughters. They were eleven and seven.”

I couldn’t swallow, and my racing pulse thrummed throughout my body. Her serious manner didn't change. I looked at the remaining whiskey and downed it in one gulp. Though the room was chilly, perspiration formed on my forehead. This isn’t real, I thought.

  In Dark Journeys, short stories and dark poems describe perilous paths taken by mortals, vampires, and other creatures of the night. Some survive, others do not. Why not join them on their journey through the gates of hell, so to speak.