Sleepwalker
by Donald H. Sullivan

The young woman's mind was muddled. Who was she, and what was she doing here? Only moments ago, she had become aware of her surroundings. She was walking alone in the darkness along a deserted road. The night was cool and damp, but she felt the warmth of the hard surface of the road through the soles of her bare feet.
    It must be early in the evening, she thought, if the road still retains the heat of the day. But why wasn't she wearing shoes? Her hands groped her breasts and slid down to her hips. She felt a fabric covering her skin; at least she wasn't naked. She rubbed the fabric between her thumb and forefinger. It was thin and flimsy. A nightgown?
    Abruptly the clouds parted, and a pale crescent moon revealed the scene around her. In the misty moonlight, she could barely make out the gravestones and tombs of a cemetery off to her left. To her right was a dark wall of trees. It was chilly, and she shivered.
    She looked up to see a few stars showing through open spaces between clouds. The crescent moon peeped through the clouds, dimly lighting the hazy landscape around her.
Had she awakened from sleepwalking? That would explain her bare feet. She tried to think of any previous sleepwalking incidents in her life. But she could remember nothing. Not even her name. Her mind was a complete blank.
    Perhaps she had suffered a blow to the head, causing her mind to be confused? Or could she be an escapee from an asylum of some kind? Another thought came to her: She might be under some kind of hypnotic control. That might explain why she had no idea where or who she was. 
    She glanced again at the cemetery, and suddenly she was filled with anxiety. There was something about the cemetery – something that she could not quite grasp in her mind – that she associated with a horror-filled experience. It was a vague memory of a horror in an experience that she could not describe or even recall clearly, but she knew that it had been very real. She gasped as the image of a tall, slim man in black flashed in her mind. She tried to see his features more clearly, but suddenly the vision was gone. It left her with a feeling of dread.
    She speeded up her steps to hurry past the graveyard.
    After a short walk, she came upon a narrow dirt road veering off to her left and running adjacent to the cemetery. Ahead of her, there was a wall of trees on either side of the road. Through the mist, she made out a light off to her left, some distance away. The dirt road appeared to lead toward the light. She hesitated for a moment, then turned onto the dirt road. Perhaps someone there could help her.
    It turned out to be a long walk; the light was farther than she thought. As she approached the end of the road, she could see that the light came from a window in a small house. The house was on her left sitting in the corner of the cemetery; it was probably the caretaker's quarters. Beyond the house and to her right was a forest of pines. 
    She stopped, filled with indecision. She felt uneasy in seeking help from someone this close to the cemetery. Perhaps she should turn around and go to seek help elsewhere. 
    As she turned to go, she was suddenly illuminated by a pair of bright lights coming up the road. Just before reaching her, the lights came to a halt. Startled, she jumped off the road and ran into the woods. 
    She turned her head to see that the lights were now extinguished. Her eyes searched for a place to hide, but the woods here were sparse, without underbrush. She continued running, and the woods grew thicker. But the ground grew rougher, and she stepped on roots and briars, hurting her bare feet. She looked back to see a man pursuing her.
    She was terrified when the dim moonlight revealed a tall, thin man wearing dark clothing.
    Exhausted, footsore, and her throat parched with thirst, she slowed down. But she was too frightened to stop and continued moving deeper into the woods. She hid behind a tree and dared to peek at her pursuer.
    From the way that he was stopping and looking around, she knew that he had not seen her yet. He started walking slowly into the woods, looking into the trees as he walked. She desperately hoped that the clouds would cover the moon, bringing darkness. As he drew closer, she began retreating, hoping to get deeper into the woods. Her heart stopped when a dry twig snapped under her feet.
    The man came running toward the sound, and she turned and ran. She zigzagged around trees and thickets hoping to lose him. But she glanced back to see the dark shape gaining on her. She sped up and dodged around more trees. She glanced back again, and this time she did not see him. 
    She crouched in a thicket, hoping to stay hidden until the man gave up. She heard a noise behind her and looked around. She was paralyzed with fear as she looked up into his face, lit up by a splotch of moonlight shining through the branches.
    He reached down, grabbed a handful of her hair, and yanked her up. She felt his powerful hand close around her wrist as he pulled her from the thicket and led her out of the trees and onto the moonlit dirt road.
    He spun her around to face him. His voice was terrifying, deep and resonant. "Do you know who I am?"
    "No," she managed. "I . . . don't know you." The man seemed familiar, but she truthfully did not recognize him. She tried to visualize the face of the terrifying man in black that she had seen in her vision, but she could not. 
    He seemed surprised by her answer. "Don't you read newspapers or watch TV?"
    "I don't know what you're talking about," she replied.
    "Does the Orange County Vampire mean anything to you?" He waved his arm around and said sarcastically, "We're in Orange County."
    "I still don't understand you."
    He was getting angry. "I don't believe you. Why are you lying to me?"
    She tried to mollify him. "You do seem familiar," she said, "but I have no memory of anything. I don't even know my own name."
    He laughed. "I'll be damned; I think you're telling me the truth. Amnesia, or maybe a sleepwalker. After cruising around tonight and finding nothing, I wondered why I was so lucky to have spotted a woman who comes to me practically asking to be my next victim." 
    He added, half to himself. "With all the publicity I get in the news, the towns around here are deserted after dark. Need to spread out into other counties." He chuckled humorlessly at his own joke.
    She looked at him, a puzzled look on her face.
    "I make sure all my victims know me, and that they know how they're going to die,” he said. “So I'll tell you what's going to happen to you. I'm going to strangle you." He produced an ice pick. "And then I'm going to puncture two holes in your neck with this ice pick, leaving my ‘vampire’ trademark. You'll be the seventh victim of the vampire.
    "I'll haul your body a few miles up the road away from the cemetery so that it won't be found nearby." He chuckled dryly. "I can't have them find your body this close to my house, now can I?"
    She pulled back and managed to break his grasp, then turned and ran toward the woods. But he caught up to her in a few strides. He punched her in the face and wrapped powerful hands around her throat.
    She smiled. The punch in the face had cleared her mind. In a flash she knew who and what she was. And she knew why she was terrified of the cemetery and of the man in black. 
    In a time long past, she had been yanked from her dark sanctuary in the cemetery and dragged out by a mob, headed by a tall priest in black. The priest had held the cross over her while the crowd held her and drove a wooden stake into her heart. She shuddered as she remembered, but she was free now. The priest and all members of the mob were long dead.
    She had been lying in her grave for uncounted years, and finally the wooden stake in her heart had rotted and crumbled to dust, freeing her. With her superhuman strength, it took little effort to claw her way out of the grave.
    She could now slake her terrible thirst. She forced the man's hands from her throat, pulled him toward her and sunk her fangs into his neck. The leering, arrogant look on his face changed to a look of terror.

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