In honor of this wonderful annual season – being October, the month of Halloween, scary scares, frightful frights and ghoulish fun that will send waves of goosebumps honking in terror across your skin – I launched a new series of articles called Elements of Horror! In what will probably be the last horror special in this series for 2019, I’ll unpack various characters or elements I used in some of my horror stories – this time, our topic is the dreaded vampires!
Yes, I have discussed some of my vampire characters before, most prominantly in an article “Secret Weapons of the Resistance #4: The Vampire Underground” – which is built on a secretive subculture of vampires living among regular Humans on the planet Deanna. In this article however we’ll be looking at vampires in a slightly more traditional, darker sense.
In “Life Signs“, book 2 in the Panic! series, a deep space luxury liner runs into trouble – and although they don’t know it yet, the source of the trouble is – you guessed it, vampires! In this story, vampires “recruit” by biting their prey, and by allowing them to feed on a measure of their own blood in return. If this is not done, the victim falls ill, develops fever, and dies in a matter of days. However, aboard the liner, there are two vampires, not just the one indulging his dark predilection for cruelty. A second, benevolent vampire views the actions of the first as abhorrent, and takes one of the crew – the chief of security, through whom that portion of the story is told – under her leathery bat-like wings, and with his consent, turns him.
According to her, the lady of mystery – and fangs – vampires no longer hunt people, they live quietly and feed from blood donations or people who bleed for them voluntarily. It’s all rather romantic, of course, isn’t it? Just as long as vamps don’t sparkle – and trust me, these don’t – and the bad guys don’t even have a twinkle in their eyes!
In the meantime, all semblance of order and control disappears from the social structure aboard the ship; it is cut off from outside communications, and is still too far away from any safe port or haven – and the Captain and senior staff have barricaded themselves onto the bridge to prevent anyone from getting in and changing the ship’s final course: into a nearby sun!
Meanwhile, fear and superstition has driven the remaining passengers and crew into a witch vampire-hunting frenzy, and Sean Lange and his companions must thread their way between roving gangs of mad people staking everyone they suspect of being vampires, in order to reach the giant ship’s shuttle deck and escape! Trouble is, the Captain has taken precautions, and locked the shuttle deck doors remotely from the bridge… and there’s still that bad vamp to worry about as well!
More Vampires!
In my free sample short story “The Thirteenth Ship”, I wrote about a man who wakes up in bed beside a gorgeous female companion, not knowing who he is or how he got there – the last thing he remembers is being aboard a commercial loderunner just as it was attacked by Corsairs – and the Corsair leading the horde of space pirates boarding his ship, was the one called ‘The Hell Queen’! When he gropes his way into the bathroom, he’s shocked to see the face being reflected back at him in the mirror is about fifty years older than he last remembered? What the hell happened? In a blind near-hysterical panic, he finally remembers…
They called her ‘the Hell Queen’. Cold. Cruel. Savage. She was the epitome of the deep space Corsair – and far more. The rumors said ‘blood drinker’… ‘vampire.’ For Hank MacMillan the perils of deep space travel were a familiar occupational hazard… When she took your ship, it stayed taken. How had he woken up in bed beside a woman who looked uncannily like …her?
Another rather icy vampire character of mine is Lirian Nimah, a secret vampire – who works as an agent for the Terran Empire’s Colonial Intelligence Agency (C.I.A.). She is the main character in a short story “Death By Vampire”, in which she meets an alien double agent acting on behalf of a terrorist group holding 100 Terran hostages in exchange for Nubian blood diamonds.
Lirian also appears in the upcoming next title in the Quantum series – er, that is when I finish the first draft and decide on a title *wink*.
In Closing
That about covers it! I hope I’ve explained all this in a satisfactory manner!
As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, this will be the last “Elements of Horror” article until next year October – so until then, I wish you all a very happy, scary, and fun Halloween!
Feel free to email or message me via Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn if you have any comments or questions!
Cheers!
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All material copyright © Christina Engela, 2019.