Foggy Mornings

Five o'clock every morning I woke up. I set coffee to boil, I turned on the lights, and I took a look outside. Every morning a dense fog covered the ground stretching all over my farm. The fog rolled in from the river about a mile away no matter what. One morning I looked out and saw five people standing in the mist. I walked out of my home calling to them, "Hello! Good morning to you." The people turned and vanished into the fog.

That same morning after I had my breakfast I went out to begin tending to the animals. I discovered one dead animal from each of my herds. One cow, one chicken, and one sheep. All of them just keeled over dead with nothing but a small puddle of blood underneath them. The only mark I could find on any of them were two small puncture marks like bite marks. I burned all the bodies just to be safe in case something had bitten them and possibly passed on a disease.

The people showed up every morning for a month. Once a week I would find one animal from each of my herds dead always in the same way. After the second time it happened I began to suspect these mysterious people were somehow involved. In the third week I walked out in the morning to call to the people again, "Hey there! Are you killing my animals for food or something? If so, you aren't even taking any meat." Once again they turned and walked away disappearing into the mist before I could even get close to them.

Every day I kept walking out and calling to the people trying to get any answer from them but they would always disappear. At the start of the fifth week I decided to start sleeping in the barn. But I was waking up an hour earlier than normal so I could try to get a look at these people. On the second day I finally succeeded. I watched out of a window on the top floor of my barn and saw them. They were walking my farm slowly looking around. They wore all black clothing I would assume to be able to blend into the night and the mist.

On the third day I made sure to bring my shotgun with me. As soon as I saw them I made my way out of the barn with my gun leveled at their chest, "Excuse me there. But you've been walking my farm for over a night now and have killed twelve of my animals. Do you care to explain yourself?" All of the people stopped and turned in unison to look at me. All of their heads tilted slightly to the right.

The one in the middle took a single step forward, "Are you the owner of this buffet? Do you take issue with our being here?" The only clear feature of their face I could see were eyes shining bright red staring into my soul.

I pulled the shotgun up to face level, "Yes I have an issue with it. This buffet is my livelihood. Now you can turn, walk away, and never come back. Or you can insist on whatever it is you're doing and I can fill you full of buckshot." The one in the middle took another step forward and I pulled the trigger. The sound from the shotgun roared out penetrating the night. The person took another step forward, half of its face gone now.

I stumbled back in terror firing again. The second shot tore through its chest. I could see through his chest now. It didn't slow him down in the least. The person spoke through the side of its face that was still intact, "Why have you done this? We could have continued to live in symbiosis with one another. We protect your land from other creatures and in return we feed. If your stock had begun to run low we would have hibernated and waited for your stock to replenish itself."

I found myself against the wall of the barn. My shotgun down on the ground by my side, "What are you?! You're a monster. I shot you! Why did you even come here?"

The man groaned and his body began to heal itself, "We are what you would call vampires. We came here because you could provide us with food without killing humans. The river nearby and the mist provided us with the perfect cover. You could call it a case of wrong place wrong time sort of situation. But then you had to interfere. After this we will eventually drain your property dry of stock and we will be forced to move once again."

I could feel my blood starting to run cold, "What do you mean? We can work this out. There's no need to kill me!"

The man laughed, his voice slowly growing in volume till it was echoing everywhere. When he stopped he turned and looked back at his comrades, "He thinks we'll kill him. He thinks we would waste our time like that. No, no simple man. You'll just become one of us." With that he turned back to me and lunged his teeth sinking into my neck.

I could feel myself fading into unconsciousness. As I did I saw my life flashing before my eyes and a bright light that beckoned to me. Then I was back on the farm staring at the man. I immediately felt a hunger burning inside of me, "I need food! So hungry!" The man laughed, pointing at one of my cows. I ran at it grabbing it and biting into it. The blood drained into my mouth bright red hot and I could feel every fiber of my being lighting up. Just as fast as it had come the hunger slowly fading away to just a small fire in me.

We proceeded to finish eating my previous livestock and then moved on to the next place where we could hunt and hide. A month later we found another river and more mist to stalk through to hunt down another farmer's livestock. As we watch from the mist all of the food walking around we hear a voice call out, "Hello! Good morning to you." I look at our leader and all he does is turn and walk away.

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