Mayme already knew how she had to use her last bullet. The thrall before her was a beast like any other she faced that night. She couldn’t let it free, it’d follow her bring the church right to her door step— likely take a few innocent lives as it did so. She couldn’t bear looking upon its face every day, so she couldn’t stomach keeping it as a pet even if that was something she wanted. It wasn’t. A pet so human looking was nightmarish to her sensibilities. In a twisted way it was almost funny, was that not what Percival had wanted to do to her? Make her a pet? Perhaps he had been right when they first met— she had a woman’s meager constitution. It just wasn’t a bad thing like he thought. After all, the man this thrall had once been obviously didn’t want that fate for his corpse.

She stood in the darkness of the stairwell, staring back at the hunched form within the basement room. The candle’s firelight licked at its dull eyes, they sat behind half closed lids like manholes— just empty abysses light failed to reach. It didn’t move. It didn’t blink. Even as Mayme’s hands twitched and tightened around her gun, it didn’t react. Even as she slowly raised her arm, it did nothing. Its dry, muted eyes did not even shift towards the barrel pointed at it.

Mayme’s lips trembled, words resisted her for several long moments as they bundled with the lump in her throat. With a swallow and a breath she finally said, “Turn around and kneel for me.”

Her voice was tiny, barely a breath. Yet it heard and did as it was told, turning towards the red dyed room and dropping heavily to its knees. Both arms were limp at its side, knuckled clattered against the floor, but the lame arm settled at a perverted, buckled angle. Mayme steadied her aim at the back of its head and looked away. Her eyes scrunched shut and her breath seised in her chest, suffocating her pounding heart. Her finger pulled the trigger.

Click— Crack

There was a flash that illuminated the stairwell bright enough Mayme could see it through her eyelids. A loud ringing overtook her ears and startled the air from her lungs. As it subsided she could only hear one thing: her own laboured breathing. Her arm dropped to her side.

No more bullets left.

She forced her eyes towards the thrall, her eyes did her the favour of blurring her vision. She saw all she needed to see. There was no head on the form that laid motionless on the floor. The red blurred with the rest of the abattoir, almost melding with his clothes in with the floor. Little globs of pink scattered over the mess. Maybe red dyed bone, maybe brain, whatever it was Mayme was content not knowing for sure. She turned away. There was nothing else for her there. She began to ascend the stairs.

The entrance to the church was nearly the same gory horror show she had left it. The new, freshest blood led from the infirmary to the front door, then back the way she had come. That froze the blood in her system. God. Percival was present enough to try and flee before turning, even if it was just long enough to walk to the front door. He was awake and aware. She kind of figured as much, but knowing he had the faintest glimmer of hope of escaping was awful. Truly, she made him suffer through what was no doubt his worst nightmare. She tried not to look at the trail, made easier as her hand covered her nose and mouth to blot out the stench of the lingering incense. She didn’t want to think about any of this any more. She just wanted to go home. She just wanted her Mama.

Mayme left the way she had come that morning. The well laid cobblestone stone turned to stone paths, then to dirt roads as she returned to her humble little lane.

Death loomed everywhere in this district of town. From the castle across the lake to the road covered in scorch marks. It stuck in the air, clinging to clothes and lingering in hair. It was made worse by the droves of dead thrall. They all seemed to have collapsed where they stood, no other wounds covered their bodies. Mayme’s eyes stayed on her feet, but it was hard to see them in her peripherals. They must have ceased the moment Elisabeth shot herself. They were little more than corpses responding to the call of their mistress’ blood; them with her that made the most sense to Mayme.

Mayme’s eyes caught her house then slowly slid over the lake she'd watch out her window. A heavy mist blanketed the water like storm clouds. The air was still, suffocating the abandoned castle just across the water. Castle Sangmont. The towering ruins loomed in the haze like a hung corpse. Putrefying on full, honest display. It had fallen some time ago, and only now did that feel real. The Sangmont leeches were dead and gone. The thralls that plagued Letcham were gone. The abomination the church kept was gone. And with any luck, Mayme and her family would pack up and leave soon too. Nothing was left for them in Letcham, besides history possibly repeating itself should the church find them.

As Mayme approached her house, she could see light seeping through the boards on the window, even while every other house was dark and quiet. Her filthy finger touched the door knob, but it didn’t budge. Locked. She rapped on the door, rasping out a small broken, “Mama?” As she did so. She did it again, repeating “Mama” again and again until there were rapid footsteps charging towards the door and the locks clicked. The door flung open.

In the lamp light of the hall stood Mayme’s mother, Belle. She hadn’t changed out of the clothes she was in that morning, she was out of breath and her pale face was blotchy. Her wide pale eyes were red from crying. Her face twisted between several emotions rapidly: relief, fear, worry, and finally back to relief. Mayme wondered why, but the bloodied handprint on the knob and knuckle marks on the door answered her question well enough. She must have been filthy. She whimpered, trying to explain herself. She said nothing but a few more pathetic “Mama”s as tears streaked down her face.

Belle took Mayme into her arms and pulled her in close for a bear hug. “Sweetheart,” was the only thing she could think to say. Her grip around her daughter tightened. Mayme’s bloodied clothes crunched between the two women and the empty gun slipped from her hand. All she could do was repeat herself when a sob escaped her lips. The sob spiralled to a wail. She wrapped her arms around her mother tightly and nuzzled her face into her shoulder. Her knees gave out and her mother had to half drag her into the house.

“Sorry Mama, I thought—”

“Hush, it’s okay. I’m just glad you’re home. None of it was your fault.”

The sun slowly peaked over the horizon. The dull grey of shadow and moonlight was washed away by warm pinks and yellows. The horrors of the night before presented themselves in full to the slowly waking town— eagerly awaiting to be swept up by townsfolk in their usual morning pyres. Quiet praises to the church for the mass death of the beasts floated through the streets, utterly unaware that they had shackled Letcham with the plague to begin with. The church was closed that whole day, the doors locked tight whilst the clergy concocted a brew of lies to cover everything up.

News printed that evening: some air borne medicine had caused the beasts to fall dead where they stood that night. The church had used most all their supplies to administer it to the whole town; it was an excuse as to why their balms and injections were far less effective now. There were some mutters of a church woman going ‘rouge’, but the population heard little beyond that simple fact. Woman’s constitution, they said, she could not handle the weight of the church’s duty. What that actually alluded to remained shrouded in mystery. Of course Mayme knew the truth, but it was best the night was blamed on the church woman.

Percival’s disappearance was never even mentioned. As far as Letcham was concerned, he was just another nameless beast. Elisabeth was left an unknown, her part in town history was unrecorded and destined to be forgotten. Every single soul Mayme had met that faithful night was nothing more than a bunch of nobodies tossed unceremoniously into a charnel house. The world turned on without them, without real justice, without a care.

***

Months later, when Mayme’s father had fully recovered and was able to return to work, her family readied themselves to leave Letcham.

Nothing had truly been resolved within the town. Instead of blood transfusion kits and leeches, the infirmary held jars of organs and limbs to transplant. People vanished in numbers similar to the percentage who turned into beasts, back when they roamed. New miracle cures were being toted out and extolled as if the church was laudable. Cynically, Mayme felt as if she was one of the few privy to the understand these ‘cures’ were simply the torture of others. It was never about the Leeches of Sangmont, it was never about Elisabeth. Vampiric blood was just a simple, easy target at the time. Nothing more, nothing less.

As the sun set one autumn evening, Mayme left her house for the last time. She had a suitcase in one hand, and a battered, old, empty pistol in the other. She stole one more glance at the castle across the lake. Fog veiled it entirely, mourning her departure; it was a shadowy phantom weeping in the distance, the cold wind whistling its sorrowful song.

“Mayme, darling?” Her mother said, but it wasn’t until a horse snorted from in front of the carriage her parents had settled in did Mayme hear.

“Just saying goodbye ,” Mayme said.

Her mother frowned. “You know, it won’t matter where we go. We’ll always be seen as monsters.”

“Abominations,” Mayme said melancholically, “Maybe so. But if we are the worst elsewhere has to offer, then I would rather that than be here. Letcham has enough abominations as it is.”

Her mother was silent, her eyes focused entirely too intently on her knees as she folded her hands atop them. Her father cleared his throat and suggested, “Folks might never be able to tell, Letcham could only ‘cause Sangmont was so close. We’ll be in a cabin, outside of the new town. Nothing more than a family of hunters. Perhaps we could even get a hunting dog to aid in the persona. Would you like that?”

Mayme’s hand tightened slightly around the pistol at the suggestion, but only briefly. “Maybe we could name it Peredur?” She suggested as she turned on her heels, never to face the castle nor Letcham again, and climbed aboard the carriage.