Their amusement fast turned to anger. The ghouls’ eerie smiles vanished and were replaced by hard stares.

It was time once again to discipline their pets.

Ben

The two ghouls closest to me finally closed the gap. They shot forward and gripped my arms before dragging me down toward the tunnel with such speed that I almost missed Lucas being caught. Almost. I caught a glimpse of him in the corner of my eye, in the clutches of a ghoul who’d grabbed hold of his neck. Kailyn was already being dragged toward the tunnel in front of me. The ghouls escorted the three of us along the canal and back through the main door. As we zoomed along the winding tunnels and then headed downward, I knew exactly where we were headed. It wasn’t long until we reached the coffin chamber.

I caught Lucas’ expression, a mixture of sheer dread and terror. Dammit! I wished so hard that he had not volunteered and somebody else had stepped up in his stead. This would only be my second visit here, but for all I knew, this could be his last.

The ghouls milled about the chamber excitedly, lining up three coffins in a row. They flipped open the lids and wrestled us each inside. My coffin’s lid slammed shut, closing me off to the world outside. Lucas was in the coffin next to me, while Kailyn was on his other side. Kailyn screamed, Lucas grunted, and I was already expecting the gnarled hand that emerged through the lid of the box, clamping around my head.

I thought that the last time had been unbearable but this… this was ten times worse. The first time had been visions of the worst kind of fantasies imaginable, which had become my reality for all those hours I’d remained in the coffin, but none of the visions had linked back to the reality that I had known all my life. The only connection had been the people I loved.

This time, however, it was totally different. Scenes from my actual life replayed in my mind, all the things that I wished to forget, blasting through my mind in more vibrant color and vivid detail than I had ever experienced in real life. I was sure that I was being tortured by a different ghoul this time; perhaps they each had their own particular preference of how to torture a person.

I relived every second of the most painful times of my existence in slow motion, lurching first to my parents’ penthouse, where I’d shot from my seat at the scent of blood on the porch. Grabbing Yasmine by the neck and murdering her in cold blood. At the time, I’d been in such a daze of bloodlust that I had barely been aware of my actions, but now, with everything slowed down to a sluggish pace, everything was a hundred times more torturous. I felt Yasmine’s body grow limper and limper, heard her gargled screams as I tore through her jugular, before her final release of breath and the sudden deadness of her body.

Then I was in the submarine, rushing to the shore of holidaying humans in South America. At the time, I hadn’t even been sure how many lives I’d claimed and who they all were. Now I saw it all, every second expanded… and there… there had even been children.

No. No! I cannot take the rest. Stop!

I tried to escape the vision, but I was there. The experience was so vivid, I could see and hear everything, practically taste the blood flooding down my throat.

It went on mercilessly, like an ogre bludgeoning an enemy, until my mind was so thoroughly drained from being drowned in the memories I’d fought so hard to bury deep in my subconscious, I thought that I would go insane.

Then, as I felt that I could not take even a minute more, a different kind of scene trickled into my mind’s eye in slow motion. Quite different, indeed…

Two figures stood inside a large circular room with a high, conical ceiling, piled up with dusty sacks of flour. It was the inner chamber of a mill. The two figures were Lucas and a woman with large blue eyes and jet-black hair. Lucas, wearing a loose shirt and dark pants, looking very much human, had her hiked up against a mound of sacks as his mouth kneaded against hers, his hands deep within the folds of her petticoat. She returned his kisses passionately, but as his right hand hiked up higher over her thigh, she broke away.

She planted her palms against his chest, creating distance between the two of them. Her cheeks were filled with a youthful blush as she gazed at Lucas.

“Wait,” she whispered. “I need to tell you something.”

Lucas looked like he wanted nothing more than to continue ravishing her, but he paused, raising a dark brow. “What?” he asked, his voice deep and husky.

Straightening her dress, she slid down from the position Lucas had been holding her in and touched her feet to the floor. She grabbed his hand and pulled him further toward the center of the room, where she stopped, holding both of his hands in hers. She gazed intensely into his eyes before saying in a soft, unsteady voice: “We’re going to be parents.”

Her expression was a mixture of anticipation and fear as she scanned Lucas’s face for his reaction. His cheeks, also flushed like hers, became deathly pale, almost as pale as a vampire’s.

Removing his hands from hers, he took a step back. His mouth fell open. “What? Y-You’re pregnant?”

She nodded, sliding a palm down her abdomen. “I’m showing all the signs,” she whispered back, even as she looked disconcerted. Clearly, she’d been hoping for a different reaction from her lover. “What’s wrong?” she asked, her eyes widening.

Lucas choked up as he continued to stare at her, dumbfounded. There must’ve been many things going through the man’s brain, but joy certainly wasn’t one of them.

She closed the distance between them again, this time gripping his forearms. She tried to pull him down for a kiss but he resisted. The poor woman was now looking more worried than ever.