Raised by a Vampire

By Terry Hayman

When six-year-old Jared sees the undead creature killing his sick mother, he thinks it's Death itself, her sickness in human form.

But Jared will come to know Death for what it is -- a vampire and now his father, the giver of comfort and discipline, the teacher of power and survival.

And on Jared's high school class trip to Europe, he'll find out how well he learned his father's lessons as ancient enemies of his family start tracking him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fiero Publishing
• Release date: Dec 24, 2022
• ISBN: 9780987733825

Terry Hayman

Raised in five different countries and currently living with his family in one of the most beautiful places on earth, Terry is a full-time writer and actor who accepts struggle, believes in goodness, and seeks truth always.

Book preview

1

When Jared first saw the undead creature who would raise him, he thought it was a dream. His eyelids were already flickering, thoughts tipping from the mostly fanciful imaginings of a six-year-old into the unrestrained fantasy of the unconscious. And all he actually saw was a shadow that swept from his open window to his bedroom door. No rustle of the air. No creak of the floor. (And the floor in this tiny apartment that he shared with his mother always creaked.)

Then his bedroom door opened. Closed.

Someone there?

Jared rubbed his eyes and rolled out of bed. Creak. He picked up Goober, the stuffed dog his mom had given him for when she left him with their neighbor so she could go into the hospital for all her tests, and padded as lightly as he could to the door of his room.

He opened it a crack and looked out.

The lights in the apartment were all out except for the night-light Jared’s mom left on in the bathroom for him. He could feel the slight breeze coming from his window behind him, and still smell the bacon from the sandwiches his mom had made for dinner. He heard the middle-of-night car sounds from the street side of the building and something that might have been blowing wind. Nothing else. Just his brain make-believing. Just—

He heard a scuffling sound from his mother’s room on the other side of the hall. It shot a bad feeling through him. Like that thing Mommy wouldn’t talk about even after she’d sung him a lullaby. The sick. It had come for her.

Jared had to pee all of a sudden. Bad. But he didn’t. He just clutched Goober tighter and crept out of his room, over to his mother’s door.

It was wide open. Light from the street lamps misted in through her half-closed blinds to make the shabby walls all yellow-gray and black. His mom’s bed too, with its tangled sheets like she’d had another rough night. And the raised-up blackness of a big statue in the middle of the bed.

Except it wasn’t a statue. It was his mom, held up like she weighed nothing at all by a shadow in the shape of a man, his head nuzzled into her neck, right up under her chin so her yellow hair hid half the thing’s face.

And Jared knew. It was Death. It was in that prayer Mommy had him say. Yea, though I wander through the valley of the guy called Death...

It made his legs go all wobbly, like he might fall down, but he clutched Goober tighter. Be strong for me, his mommy always said when she had to leave him to go to the hospital. Be strong.

But Jared wasn’t strong. And he didn’t want his mommy to go.

He took a step into the room. You stop...

But even as he spoke, Death’s head rose from his mother’s neck and turned towards Jared.

Jared froze.

It wasn’t a man. Of course it wasn’t a man. It was Death. More like a skull, all white and tight. Blood was smeared everywhere around the open mouth and inside, where Jared could see sharky teeth with two really long ones, like a wolf. And even as these thoughts tumbled around in Jared’s head, his gaze got stuck on the skull-thing’s eyes. They were wolf’s eyes. Or crazy-man eyes. All yellow and veined with red. They burned into Jared. Dared him to move. To twitch.

Jared didn’t. But he peed his pajamas. The trickle ran hot down his leg and pooled around his right foot.

Death wrinkled its nose back. Its gaze twitched to the floor, then back to make sure Jared hadn’t moved.

What the gaze couldn’t do was stop Jared from listening, smelling, looking with the sides of his eyes, and reaching out with all his senses to find some kind of movement or breath or warmth from his mother. And when he couldn’t find anything at all, even though his little six-year-old brain knew his mother had to be dead if Death was here, he still whispered hopefully, Mommy?

Death’s crazy eyes narrowed and looked from Jared to the still woman in its arms. Then back to Jared. The eyes shifted a little to one side, obviously considering something. Jared could almost hear it thinking. There was no other sound or movement in the room.

After what seemed long enough to recite the poem they’d memorized in school last week—In Flander’s Fields the poppies grow...—the crazy eyes seemed to get softer, less red, and Death raised a black sleeve and white hand up to wipe its mouth. Your mother... it said in a voice that sounded like it was speaking inside an echo box around both their heads, is dead.

Jared shook his head. No. Mommy?

The creature turned and laid Jared’s mother down flat on the bed. Jared could see now that the area under