The lights flickered and Yvonne wondered if the power would go before she could finish reading her magazines. The storm outside was a particularly violent one, with the rain pounding almost horizontally against the windows. Lightning and thunder occurred just about simultaneously, and the wind howled like a soul in torment. Though the sun had gone down just minutes ago the sky was already pitch black, an angry black that kept all but the bravest indoors.
But, the possible loss of electricity aside, she really didn't care about the storm. In fact, it supplied the perfect mood for what she was reading. What could be better when reading horror magazines than a raging thunderstorm in the background, shrouding everything in its eerie darkness? She couldn't have asked for a better night to read her favorite magazines, provided, of course, she didn't lose her reading light.
Earlier in the day she'd found an old box of magazines in the attic, and had dusted off the slightly mildew-smelling carton and brought it downstairs, where she found to her unbounded joy that it contained a treasure trove of old CREEPY and EERIE magazines from the 1960's, all still in clean, readable condition. She waited all day for her chance to snuggle up under her blanket and return to her childhood days of delightful chills. And now, amidst this howling storm, she finally had that chance.
Wearing only a flimsy teddy and her most comfortable panties, she sat in her bed, plopping a pile of magazines beside her on the blanket. She pulled her knees up and then brought the blanket up over her knees and breasts and tucked it under her arms, forming a pocket in which to nestle the magazines as she read them. Beside her, on her nightstand, sat a large glass of wine, to be slowly sipped and enjoyed, warming her from the inside as she hoped the stories and the storm would chill her from without.
Snuggled and comfy, she gleefully searched through the pile of magazines at her side. She came upon one with a cover depicting a group of obviously irate villagers surrounding a coffin who's occupant was anything but dead. From the fangs in his mouth he was obviously a vampire, and the villagers were pounding a stake into his evil heart. Vampire stories had long been a favorite of hers, so she decided this particular magazine was a good place to start her night of delicious chills.
The first two stories were not vampire stories, but were just as good, dealing with zombies and a haunted house. Then she came to the vampire story. She read it completely through and enjoyed it so much she went back and read it again. The twist ending was a surprise the first time around, due to the fact that she hadn't read the story in over 20 years, but not so the second time ...though the story was still a joy to read even with the surprise gone.
Sighing, her spine tingling, she moved on to the next story. It apparently dealt with an Egyptologist who could occupy the bodies of various mummies and use them to kill his rivals. It seemed a novel idea and she began to read with great enthusiasm, stopping briefly to sip her wine.
She never got to enjoy that story, at least not at that moment, because it was then that a particularly nasty bolt of lightning seared through the sky and crackled to the earth a very short distance from her home. Her lights flickered twice, dimmed...and died.
"Dammit!" she protested, "That story was getting good! Everything was so perfect up until then."
She leaned over to the nightstand and groped on its bottom shelf, retrieving the flashlight that she kept there for just such emergencies. As she briefly fumbled to find the switch, lightning flared outside, lighting up her room like a strobe light, bleaching the color from every object in her room and turning everything black and white...just like in the magazines. When she found the flashlight's switch, she flipped it on and made a fruitless attempt to read her magazine by flashlight beam.
"Shit!" she hissed, taking a swig of wine, "Now what? I can't do anything until the electric is back on."
"Maybe I can be of some assistance in that area," came a deep voice from the foot of her bed, "I have been known to keep boredom away from women on many an occasion such as this."
Her wine glass fell to the floor as both of Yvonne's hands gripped the flashlight fiercely and directed the beam shakily toward that booming voice. The beam danced on the figure as her hands shook violently. The dark figure's eyes reflected the beam eerily as did two tiny points slightly below them.
The man revealed in the flashlight's mediocre light was tall and muscular, wearing only a mid-length raincoat. His face was hard and cruel with eyes that chilled Yvonne to the marrow of her bones. His lips were blood red and his almost hairless chest dripped with rain despite the protective raincoat. Yvonne followed the water droplets with her eyes as they trickled down his chest, along his belly and then lower still. When she saw the end point of those tiny droplets, she gasped loudly. The man smiled a completely evil smile.
