Ambrose was a child during a time where orphans slipped through all sorts of cracks. He still looks a child now—but we will start this story long ago when he was truly and thoroughly a child. 

At the age of six, he was nearly as big as any eight year old. By eight, he had grown almost as tall as the shortest of teens. He was picked on regularly and often singled out by the caretakers of the orphanage. He probably would have been the tallest kid at the orphanage by twelve, but so much transpired before that could occur. In fact, during his tenth year everyone at the orphanage was anxious. 

That winter a number of children had fallen ill. It was a strange affliction all things considered. Strange fevers, erratic behaviours, and violent tendencies that blanched the faces of the most hardened adults. 

Then, before spring could bloom fully, a girl named Cindy died suddenly. She was nine and as healthy as any of the children were considering a sparse diet and endless physical labour prescribed by their caretakers. It was another girl who had discovered her. 

The scream that morning was shrill and echoed throughout the whole place. When a bunch of the boys ran to the girls dorm, naturally Ambrose was able to see above the tousled crowns of the others and into the girls dorm. What he saw chilled him to the bone snd his face echoed those of many of the boys around him. Some of them screamed as well, which prompted someone to quickly shut the door and usher them away. 

“Who was that?” One younger boy asked.  

“Cindy,” an older boy responded flatly. 

“That didn’t look like her,” someone else said.

Ambrose looked from face to face around him and all he could see was what each boy would have looked like in her place. 

Mouth agape.

Sunken eyes.

Cold grey skin.

“What happened to her?”

“Didn’t she kick Suzie yesterday? What if what happened was a punishment?”

Now, the boys were arguing and shouting over each other. A few of the younger ones were crying in the chaos of voices. Flashes of the vision he laid eyes upon moments before tugged at his mind. There was something else he noticed while standing outside the doorway, right as someone moved to close the door. 

“Vampire.” Ambrose’s choice of word caught the attention of most of the boys.

“What did you say?” Charlie, a boy that often bullied him shoved past another boy and stood nose to nose Ambrose.

“He said it was a vampire.” 

“You said that?” Charlie’s incredulous words were spat into his face. “How stupid are you? Vampires aren’t real!”

Some of the boys laughed. And Charlie loved when they did, a smirk formed every time he got that reaction at his expense—or at the expense of anyone really. Crowded into a cluster there wasn’t much space available but Ambrose tried and turned away. Charlie reached out and shoved Ambrose roughly. 

Ambrose felt the anger within spike. Knowing what he saw and feeling cornered, he caught himself in a half step, swivelled around growling, and dove into Charlie with both hands. The older boy flew backward knocking over a smaller boy who tumbled to the ground. Charlie pivoted trying to recover and continued right into a bed post, the top of which caught him in the gut. Charlie dropped to the floor groaning. All of the other boys stepped back. Some were obviously shocked that Ambrose had lashed out, others were resigned in quiet understanding. 

It was the first time Ambrose retaliated. Though it had been some time since the boy had grown tall enough to match the older boy in height, it was the inexplicable certainty he felt that ignited his fervour. The rest of the boys gave him a wide berth afterwards. 

The rest of that day was typical in machinations only. Every thing seemed muted, the boys were mostly quiet and the girls were sombre. Ambrose tried not to make eyes contact with anyone, especially Charlie. Whenever he found the other boy, he looked unabashedly enraged. He knew something was coming his way before too long. The anxiety of it drove his appetite away and so he barely ate his evening meal. By lights out, he was starving and nervous. Sleep came very late that night and when it did, so did Charlie. 

It was dark, only a sliver of moonlight made it through the far window at the end of the dorm. Ambrose awoke with a start and immediately struggled against a force restraining his arms and before his eyes could adjust he felt a weight press down on his body and a hand clamp over his mouth. 

“Hold his arms!” The voice above hissed. 

Faint silhouettes to either side gripped his wrists while Charlie adjusted his weight, straddling Ambrose awkwardly. His legs were pressing into his sides painfully. The hand covering his mouth pressed his lips against his teeth. He tried to turn his head but then Charlie leaned forward and closed off his nose too. 

Ambrose had no way to breathe now.

Seconds felt like minutes.

His lungs ached for air and he fought more desperately. The pain was in his chest now and throat as his body suffocated. His vision blurred and everything seemed to turn black. 

The grip on his arms lessened at some point and he was able to use his fingers to pry at the Charlie’s hands until finally he was able inhale through a nostril. 

“Hey! What are you guys—” Charlie’s voice sounded like froze in his throat. In fact, in that moment he felt the body on top of him spasm and then the hand over his mouth was gone. The two at either side were gone too. Were they went Ambrose couldn’t tell because the shadow of Charlie’s body seemed to swell and envelop the space above him. It was like the darkness of the night swallowed the other boy, but the weight of him was still there. 

Panting deeply, Ambrose began to catch his breath and return to his senses. His eyes still must have needed to adjust because the inky void in front of him seemed to obscure most of Charlie. All he could see was the boys face caught at a strange angle, like a mask hanging askew in the air. Then, he caught movement within the shadow. 

Were those eyes? 

Ambrose froze in terror. There was something in that formless shadow, gripping at Charlie’s throat. He felt like he was a starving little mouse being watched by an even hungrier cat that abruptly ignored its current prey for him. Suddenly Charlie collapsed onto Ambrose like a limp rag doll. The other boy was dead weight atop him. 

Ambrose squirmed and shoved at Charlie to maintain a view of the malevolent shadow, but only empty darkness filled the room around him now. The other boys were sleeping in their beds, some snoring. That was when he noticed a dampness soaking through the thin blanket he was provided to sleep with. The smell of urine reached his nose now. 

Still pinned underneath, Ambrose slowly realized that Charlie was no longer moving at all. He grunted as he pushed at the boy’s shoulder to roll him over and in doing so he caught a glimpse of Charlie’s face. 

“Noo,” the panic rose in his throat as his efforts turned frantic and desperate. 

Mere inches away from Ambrose, the other boy’s face looked like Cindy’s. Ashen, sunken, and frozen in anguish. He clamoured out from under the boys body and fell onto the floor. Panting, he searched for any sign that anyone else had seen what he’d seen. Every boy in the room was either snoring or dead silent. 

He glanced back at Charlie, laying prone on his bed. Those eyes were dull and didn’t even reflect any of the sparse light behind Ambrose, and yet some flickered and his heart jumped as he whirled around.

Nothing. 

Just shapes made up of light and plenty of shadows. Some of those shadows seemed to grow as he peered into the stillness. A slow rustling came from his bed, then an awkward series of thuds punctuated by a loud THUD.

Charlie’s body had tumbled onto the floor into a heap. 

Now, a few of the other boys in the room began to stir from their slumber, including the boy that had been sleeping in the next bed. As the boy sat up and rubbed in his eyes, Ambrose bolted. He ran through out through the door of the boys dormitory, down the hall, around the corner and passed the girls dorm. 

The old grounds keeper, Elias, was making his rounds in the west corridor near the south entrance. Ambrose saw the silhouette at the end of the hallway and instinctively veered in the opposite direction. Where his bare feet slapped against the worn floor boards inside, once he pushed out through the door at northern entrance he feet smoothed stone steps and the dry grass of the sparse garden behind the massive building. As his legs pumped and carried him over the uneven pathways he could hear that the groundskeeper was in pursuit. 

Ambrose, still in flight mode, saw the gate at the corner of the garden that opened up to the rest of the property. He rushed to reach that opening before Elias could reach the door. Then maybe he could have a chance to reach the wooded area just over the grassy knoll where the boys sometimes played king of the hill. 

“Oy!” Elias called after him. In the next moment he felt safer, though he continued to run. Up and over the knoll, towards the thickly wooded area beyond. The cloudy night sky and half moon above provide partial light, but as he approached the trees the darkness within the wood gave him pause. He turned back and he could see the head of the grounds keeper starting to rise above the knoll. Beyond, a few of the lights within the orphanage were now on. The windows of the boys dorm had just illuminated. 

Ambrose turned back to the shadows amongst the trees and stepped into the darkness. 

At first it was like he was blind. He stumbled. He bumped into trees and shrubs, he felt around and scraped every limb on something. Once his eyes adjusted he found a small spot to hide in. By that time the groundskeeper was at the edge of the wood calling out. It sounded like there were other voices now too. 

“You’re safe in here,” a deep rasp of a voice told him. It sounded alarmingly close. “At least from them.”

The hairs on his neck stood up. The sensation that the shadow he had retreated into was in fact the one shadow he should have avoided compelled Ambrose into action. He launched out into the open with a yelp climbing out of his throat. Before his bare feet could land his next step something seized him. He was in the air and everything was spinning. When it stopped he was on his back, pinned by an immense force. The air above him darkened and swirled about.

“What a special treat you are..” that gravel thick voice descended upon him and for in instant he thought he saw two pin pricks glisten within the darkness. 

Teeth sunk effortlessly into his throat and then nothing.