[Recommended Music: To Dance Among The Marigolds| 137]
THUD!
The closing of the vehicle's door disturbed the bats to fly away from the nearby tree, a man opened the bonnet of the car and smoke gushed right into his face causing him to cough out.
Swatting the smoke with his hands, he held the torch forward taking a look at the engine. Glancing down at the condition of his car he left a long sigh. The engine was blown out. Still, the smoke swirled from the engine in the middle of the eerily silent road. Not one soul to be seen except him. He leaned over the car as he closed the car's bonnet and tried dialing the mechanics.
"Hello?... Yes, my car's engine has been blown out... Aha... Yes... Yes... It's a Ford F-150. Ok... I'm at the Orolem Street... Sure." He said, the call ended, and he put his phone in the car.
As he waited for that the repairmen to come, he took a look at his surroundings. It was nothing but a dark road as if it was an endless path.
Even the trees looked pitch black. The once blue sky was now covered with black tranquility married to the poetry of stars that he could not take his eyes off. It made his body and brain feel at rest and let the heart go to its steady rhythm, calming his soul.
The chilly breeze shivered him to wiggle his body. He lit his torch as he felt someone or something sweep passed him. Turning around, he held his torch closer to his chest with a slight fear that crept through his body with self-consciousness. As he turned back and was about to brush his ridiculous thought away, something sharp pierced his heart and engulfed his face.
AAAHHHH!!!
The man's loud cry of pain erupted in the middle of the lonely street surrounded by the thick forest.
The very next morning, the mechanic man who paid not much heed drove to Orolem Street along with a fellow worker of his, calmly and saw the vehicle which the man over the phone said about during the time midnight.
"The man is about to burst his anger, Lee. Pay no heed to it, you get what I say?" he questioned his fellow worker who was new to the work but he wasn't listening to his senior's advice.
"Yo man! I said pay no heed to him, not me!" he yelled at his junior who now took off one of his earphones and gave his half attention to his senior. The gesture caused the man to roll his eyes and yell at him again, "Focus, boy!" he said, swapping his head from behind.
"As a punishment, go deal with the man while I take out these things," he said and went back into the car while the boy walked forward, taking off his earphones and letting them fall around his nape.
"Did you check if it was the engine blown or something lighter than said?" came the man carrying the tools in his hands.
"What's got you to stand there idol, boy?" he questioned as he tapped his junior's shoulder.
The young boy could do nothing but nod his head and point over the gruesome sight.
The toolbox fell off the clutch of the senior's hand as his mouth gaped at the sight with a shock that left a low cry.
A man was lying bloody dead. His core was left open, his eyes turned black and his mouth wide open. The white shirt he was in had turned crimson, soaked with blood. Flies were hovering above the dead body that was lying on the road. Blood trailed from the car's bonnet bloody as hell till the body.
A sharp shiny object was pierced to the man's core and half of it or what it looked like was visible from where they were, not so close, but the heart was missing. The man's bloody veins and muscles were in sight. It was a gory sight for one to explain.
Finding his voice, the young boy voiced out in a thin voice, "Senior...? What a-are we to do?" he questioned, stuttering on the verge of crying.
"Run," he whispered, and a second pass by his senior ran off getting into the jeep they came. "You coming or what? This place looks no safe young lad," he said, and the young boy came running toward the jeep. Not a minute passed by his neck was snapped off not letting him scream. The stork-like hands dip ripped into his back gouging his beating heart out and the creature sucked the blood like drinking his favorite juice and licked its bloody hands with its worm-like tongue.
The man in the jeep screamed as he skittishly started the engine witnessing the scene in front of him. Successfully starting the engine he drove as he dialed the cops. The call was immediately connected.
"HELP!!! HELP!!! SOMETHING IS COMING AFTER ME!!!" Screamed the man out of his lungs as he drove the car as fast as possible. As he glanced at the rearview mirror, he saw the creature snapping its head looking at him. He trembled in fear as he looked away from the gory and horrible sight.
[ Sir, may I know where you are and who is after you? ] questioned the man seriously on the call.
"Uh... Uh... F-forest! No! OROLEM STREET!!" He screamed as he saw another similar creature standing right in front of him in the middle of the road, a distance away from his car.
"IT'S HERE! IT'S HERE! HELP!!!" Screamed the man as he turned his steering wheel, and it lead the car to hit a pine tree causing the front of the jeep to crash, and the man was severely injured. The creature came after the vehicle and ripped the man's heart too, quenching its thirst with the freshly dripping blood.
The cop on the phone had now gathered the fellow cops and informed the councils to immediately head to the spot, but before they could reach Orolem he heard the man losing his life over the call and a garbling sound. The rest of the cops were also listening to it with high alert.
By the time they reached the spot, they saw the street painted with blood belonging to the three people who were dead in different places but all had hollowed faces as if the soul was sucked off the body and the core where the heart was empty. Cops, councilmen, and councilwomen were gathered to discuss the horrible case they had to encounter.
Similar incidents have been transpiring for the past few weeks running out of their hand. They could not find the culprit or the so-called creature that the dead person had mentioned about it, but the inner circle of the council had a slight idea of who might these gory works belonged.
The only question was, 'Why were they doing this and why did they need the heart, be it the human's or the core of the lowly vampires.'