The fog began to thicken and the night became much darker. The darkness was soupy, damp and chill and I pulled my thin shawl tighter about myself. I was freezing, but I had to go, I had to know if it was true.
Thoughts swirled in my head, confused as the mist swirling at my feet. I thought about the funeral, the closing of the mausoleum, the whispered furtive tales, the dead children.
Hiding myself in the fog, I was less likely to be seen. If anyone did see me, they would think I was mad. "There's a vampire about, you daft fool!! Get inside and lock your door tight!" they would yell at me through cracks in their own doors. But I had to know. I had to know if they were right.
Before Jonathan became ill, our life was like a fairy tale. Our joy was simple and pure, like children playacting a noble knight and his fair lady. We got married so fast that it made my head spin and our life was wonderful. Simple but wonderful.
In his last few months, I did everything I could to make him happy. I sang for him, made his favorite foods, helped him to the window so he could see the sunrise. But, he just kept getting weaker and weaker. The doctors didn't know what was wrong, and in the end, he died quietly, in his sleep, in my arms. I wept.
Now, the townspeople say he's risen. "Nosferatu," is the whisper I hear in the markets, when they think my attention was elsewhere. A vampire. And, I have to know. If he's alive, even in that sense, I must see him! It's foolish, I know it's only a superstition to explain the loss of so many children to the same disease Jonathan died of but, I have to see for myself. If I just watch the doors to his crypt for one night, I'll be satisfied.
The fog was so dense that I had to settle myself on a gravestone right next to his mausoleum to even see the doors. I huddled next to its dampness in the dark, keeping my eyes glued to the iron door with the grillwork like eyes that stared right back at me.
He came up behind me so silently that I never knew he was there, not until he called my name, so softly. "Samantha." His voice had never been so quiet, so sensual, but it was Jonathan's voice, all the same. His cold hand came to rest on my shoulder and I knew that it was all true. But, I didn't know what to feel.
"Sammy, go home! Go home and lock the doors! Avoid me at all costs. I don't want to hurt you!"
I had to say something. I had planned something to say if I did find him, but upon actually doing so, all thought fled my mind. All I knew was I found him. I couldn't live without him and I must never lose him again.
I felt his hand withdraw from my shoulder and I whirled, reaching out to him in the dim fog. "Jonathan, don't! Don't leave me again, let me stay with you!"
"I can't. I wouldn't be able to control myself. I hardly can now, with you so warm and so close. I would have to drink of you, take from you and you would die the same slow, sad death that I did. I won't do that to you." He drifted back away from me very slowly with an infinitely sad look in his eyes.
"Then take me! Make me like you!" I could feel the desperation in my own voice, and hoped it hid the fear that was beneath it.
But he stopped moving away. "You're frightened," he said, as he kneeled next to me on the damp earth.
"I won't ever be again. I can't live without you! Please Jonathan. If you ever loved me. . . " My voice trailed off in tears that seemed to boil as the fell from my eyes.
He sighed and kissed the tears from my cheeks. Then he looked over my face with a gentle eye. I felt his cold arm go around my waist as he lifted me easily, as if I were only so many feathers in his hands. I curled in his arms, hiding my face in his shoulder as he carried me into his cold crypt, his home.
"It's hard. You must always be hiding," he whispered.
"I don't care."
And then, as his teeth slid into the vein at my throat a fog began to thicken in my mind. I could feel my memories of the light slowly slipping away. But I knew. I knew that although I had seen my last sunrise I had come home to my love again, forever.