ZACH PART ONE
He stood in the doorway of an abandoned house watching as the night sky started to lighten. Zach only had a few minutes more before he would have to go inside where his new family waited in the cold dark cellar. It was during this time, every night, Zach would think and reflect.
To say he was a normal boy would be stretching it. He never got along with the other kids at school. They always seemed afraid of him. Even the bullies wouldn’t bother making him a target.
Zach’s parents whispered behind closed doors where they thought he couldn’t hear them. They worried about how out of control his aggression and anger had been getting. An eight-year-old should be out playing with other children or riding his Rover bicycle instead of holing away in his room alone.
A smile spread across Zach’s small features as he thought back to those moments. If they only knew about the horrible things he did in his private time. They would have skipped the family trip to Romania and moved up his appointment with the town psychiatrist.
He ran his short fingers through shaggy black hair, exposing pitch black eyes. The sky now threatened him with hues of red and orange. That trip had changed everything for him. That trip is what made him what he was… a vampire.
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It was 1886 and he stood at the bow of a rather large three mast sailing ship traveling from New York to Romania. His parents had made the plans telling all the gossipy community they were visiting relatives in Germany. However, their true destination was a bit more distant.
Apparently, Zach had family in Romania, Kronstadt in particular. He could care less about this wasted trip. All he wanted was to go back home to his dark room and even darker experiments, but his parents refused to leave him behind. They claimed he needed some adventure to hopefully brighten his moods.
That is how he found himself now leaving the ship and taking a carriage to the Express d’Orient. Once they reached Pitesti in Romania, they would travel the rest of the way to Kronstadt by carriage.
Servants loaded their baggage into one of the sleeping coaches while Zach was towed by his mother to the restaurant coach. They sat at an elaborately decorated table complete with oil lamps and velvet chairs. All the window curtains had been pulled down to keep the hot sun out. Once his father joined them, they order their meals and sat in silence.
“Zach, dear. Would you like some pudding?”
“No, mother, I would not.” Zach stared at her with narrowed eyes. His father ordered an alcoholic drink and pretended to not pay attention. That’s just how it always was, his mother trying to make him into a normal child and his father never noticing.
The train lurched forward rocking the hanging lamps. Workers hurried around cleaning up spilled drinks and delivering meals. It wasn’t the life of the train that interested Zach. People going about mundane lives doing mundane things bored him. Death fascinated him, however. He watched each waiter trying to think of different ways death might take them. A smile spread across his face as he mentally played the role delivering that death.
From in the back of the coach, an older man in thick furs coughed loudly. His skin was grey and eyes red. Zach noticed numerous glass cups scattered around his table. Just as he lifted his hand to order another, he went into a coughing fit and vomited all over the approaching waiter. Women screamed and men gasped. The man’s eyes grey wide when he couldn’t stop long enough to catch his breath. In a shudder, he collapsed dead on his table.
The coach erupted in chaos. Husbands clung to fainted wives and waiters scurried to and fro, not really knowing what to do. Zach stood up to get a better view. His mother tried grabbing him by his dress jacket sleeve, but he yanked free. This trip had just become interesting. The dead man’s vacant eyes seemed to look in his direction. Zach took several steps forward hoping to get closer, if he could just touch the body.
He dodged a waiter trying to push him back. Only a few more feet and he would be there. His mother yelled his name begging him to come back but Zach refused to listen. He stretched out a hand. Mere inches from his target an icy grip snatched him away. He tried to pull free, expecting to see his father, but the man was not his father.
A tall, older man with long black hair held his wrist firmly. No matter how hard he tried, Zach couldn’t pull free. He looked up at the man and glared hatred. “Let me go.”
In a thick Romanian accent, the stranger answered. “Do not disturb the dead, my son. I do believe you need to return to your seat.”
“I am not your son. Now let me go.” Zach’s voice was low and threatening.
This apparently amused the man. His lips curled in a grin and Zach gasped at the sharp pointed canine teeth. When his eyes traveled to meet the man’s, he blinked rapidly. A faint red glow emanated from his deep brown eyes. “What are you?”
“This is not the time, but you will know soon enough. Now go. We shall meet again.”
