A Vampire's Christmas Carol

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Authors: Karen McCullough
Tags: Suspense, Romance, Paranormal, vampire, Christmas
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bad enough. Then he started pleading, his voice thin
and whiny, a stark contrast to his usual deep, mellow tones. “I
smell you. The blood…red blood. Please. Please! Need…the red blood.
Come closer, just a little closer.”
    Instead she backed away another step or two,
wincing as another convulsion ripped through him, jerking his body
like a boneless doll into contortions that had his arms wrapped
around his shoulders and legs bending up behind him so far his feet
almost reached his neck. Incoherent sounds—some shouts, some
cut-off moans and a few pleas—poured out of him until the spasms
finally passed and left him sprawled on the floor, arms and legs
stuck out at odd angles. Nonetheless, he looked up, the red glow
flickering in his eyes, and began to creep in her direction
again.
    “Michael!” She raised the stake. “Stop. You
don’t want to do this. Remember? You want to die human.”
    She considered running for the front door,
but it was four-thirtyish in the morning, still dark and probably
still snowing outside. If this pursuit didn’t stop soon, though,
she’d take her chances.
    “Michael, please! Remember.”
    He halted and stared at her. The red glow
flickered a few times, then his entire body went tense and rigid.
His eyes closed and his head dropped onto his extended arms. For
several long minutes, he lay there. His back heaved up and down
five or six times before that slowed along with his breathing.
    Finally he rolled over onto his back. When he
opened his eyes, the red glow was gone, leaving only the dark blue
irises around a black center. He remained still, gathering his
strength, for several minutes before he again got to a sitting
position. After a glance around, he levered himself up to his feet
and staggered back to the leather chair, where he all but collapsed
into it.
    “I can smell you,” he said. It was more a
statement of fact than either warning or plea. He rubbed his hands
over his face. If he’d looked ravaged before, he approached being
skeletal now. The bones protruded sharply and his eyes had sunk
deep into his skull. His skin was the color of raw, unworked clay.
Tremors, not huge convulsive ones, but a fine series of quivers,
shook him continually. “Probably better you don’t come any closer.”
Even the words seemed to be an effort.
    “All right. I’ll stay here.”
    A series of heavy breaths pumped in and out
of him. “It’s— Talk to me again. Say anything. Distract me. Do you
have any plans for this Christmas?”
    “Nothing special. I’ve got a few tins of
cookies in the car. I expect my mom will burn hers again. Of
course, my brother claims he’s developed a taste for burnt cookies,
but I bet he eats mine first. So will Laura’s kids. We would have
had eggnog last night around the fire, but, frankly, I won’t miss
that all that much. I’m not sure why everyone likes eggnog so much.
Probably that dab of bourbon my dad puts in it. I’d rather just
have my bourbon straight.”
    “I still have trouble accepting that ladies
drink so much now,” he said.
    “They did back when you were alive,” she
said.
    “Not so much.”
    “Maybe not. But you think all that cooking
wine went into the food? And didn’t they like to have a nip of
sherry sometimes?”
    “Yes, but that hardly counts.”
    “You ever tried sherry?”
    “No,” he admitted.
    “It packs more punch than you expect.”
    “All right. I concede. What else will you do
on Christmas? Aside from eat the roast you hope your mother will
remember to put in the oven and the pies you hope she manages not
to burn too badly.”
    “Actually, I’ve got a couple of pies in the
back of the car too, but they’re probably frozen by now. And I’ll
remind her about the roast. If I get there.”
    “You will. What about the morning? Christmas
morning?”
    “The usual. The kids will wake us all up way
too early, probably right about now, in fact, to open their gifts.
Paper and ribbons will fly. Boxes get torn

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