Based On The Great New England Vampire Panic

– Please note that this is not a reflection of the authors views, but is instead reflected as what the main character may believe of himself and how the world works. The time period is the late 1800’s, keep that in mind when reading. Although comprehensible, more information can be found at the end of the story.

A Historical Fiction By Tara Sanders

 

Her cheeks were sunken in, her ribs countable through the threadbare clothing. A cough racked her shoulders, a glob of blood flying from her mouth. Thomas Miller watched as his wife slowly succumbed, as she got sicker and sicker. The consumption was as sure to take her life as it had taken three of their children, with their youngest starting to show the signs of the sickness as well. His once beautiful wife was not long for this world.

Gently reaching out to take her hand, he lead Emily inside their home where it was warmer. Emily had insisted she felt fine, but her forehead had felt so warm, and she had just wanted a moment of fresh air. Her thin shoulders trembled, her form emaciated. When Emily had first started showing the signs of consumption three months ago, just a short time after the death of their son Edward, Thomas had been horrified. He couldn’t lose her as well.

Now though, it was becoming more and more obvious that unless something changed soon, Emily would be gone within a matter of days, weeks if he was lucky–which he rather thought had already been displayed that he was not. He was growing desperate. This was why he finally gave in to his neighbor´s rambles, to the murmurs and whispers that were sweeping the town, sweeping the nation and the world over.

Thomas hadn’t heard of a case that worked yet, but he really was desperate. With the death of his wife and youngest child–his last child–he would be completely alone. The thought made his throat close up and his stomach roil unpleasantly. This was why he gave in to the superstition surrounding him on all sides, and this was why, later that night, he found himself surveying the cemetery as his neighbors picked at the frozen dirt above his children’s graves. It didn’t take long for the tops of the coffins to show, the graves having been slightly too shallow, but Thomas having been too old to do all the back-breaking work of digging a deep grave and having been too proud to ask for help.

Tears pricked at his eyes as his neighbour Henry Gavins threw open the lid of the first coffin, revealing little Susan. She’d been 23 when she passed, but had she survived, her fiancé and she would have been just finishing the final touches of their wedding plans. But instead, she lay pale in the ground, her hands folded over each other, and the skin stretched and thin, with large strips bone showing through the surface. Her long hay blonde hair, once so beautiful and a source of pride, was now dirty and limp, strands falling out all around her.

If all this weren’t enough, her eyes were straight out of a horror novel. They were sunken in, with maggots and all kinds of little beasties obviously having made a meal of them.

Horror. That was all Thomas could feel as he stared at his little girl, once so bright and beautiful, and now slowly becoming one with the earth. It didn’t register as tears started streaming down his face, although if he had had the presence of mind, Thomas likely would have been humiliated. Thomas was many things, but a crying pansy typically wasn’t one of them.

Eventually, Gavins and the other two men, Michaels and Smith, called out their clearance of the corpse, pleased with the amount of decay. Susan was not the life sucker.

This happened twice more with Thomas’ other two children, brave and good Edward who would have been turning 15 come spring, and cute little Hannah who had always been so sweet and loving. Eventually, the men called out that all of the bodies were decaying at the normal rate. They weren’t vampires. They weren’t life suckers.

Thomas felt relief sweep across his body, even as guilt and mourning invaded his heart. He had disturbed his children’s rest for no reason. He was going to lose his wife and last child regardless. It didn’t matter. None of his efforts would achieve anything. He would be alone. The years building his house took out of his youth, the years he spent raising his children and pouring his all into them so they’d visit and take care of him when he was too old to take care of himself. All of that went down the drain. What use was his house when it would only contain himself? Who would keep him company in his last days and carry on his legacy?

The best Thomas could now hope for was for the Consumption to take him too, so he didn’t have to wait to grow old, wait to die and join his family. At least Thomas wouldn’t have to watch any of his children’s hearts burn, watch as his wife and remaining child drank down the ashes. He’d been worried that they’d have to burn all of their hearts.

Thomas barely registered the men closing the coffins, barely registered the icy dirt crunching on the coffins, barely registered as Michaels grabbed hold of his arm and lead him home. Thomas stared up at the dark ceiling for a long time that night, the images he’d seen seared into his eyes.

A fortnight later, Thomas watched as his wife was lowered into the ground next to his children, and four weeks later watched as his youngest child, his only child, started coughing up blood and as weight started dropping from his frame. He watched as he too became bedridden, before becoming ground ridden.

He heard as the doctors started whispering Tuberculosis in 1882, after three years alone. And he felt it as coughs racked his frame, as a sharp pain tugged at his throat and a dark liquid fell from his lips. He felt the crushing loneliness as his skin started to burn, as everything he ate came back up. He felt the relief as his life force slowly slipped from his fingers like water, as he realized that soon he would no longer be by himself.

It took nearly three weeks for his neighbours to realize that something was horribly amiss, to realize that the absence of Thomas Miller was not because of his recent withdrawal, but because he too had died.

And they watched as his heart and liver was burned out of him three months later.

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Background:

In the time this takes place in, Tuberculosis hadn’t yet been discovered, and the way the symptoms of it were being showcased, it seemed as if their lives were being sucked right out of them. It was common for entire families to fall to TB, and as the last members were falling, fingers would start being pointed. This was typically at those who had died from TB before. These family members (or on the very rare occasion, friends or neighbors as the earliest victims were near always the blamed) would be exhumed, and if their bodies weren’t deemed decayed enough, their hearts and livers would be dug out of their bodies and burned. Sometimes their head would be burned as well. The sick would either breathe in the fumes from the fire or drink the ashes.

This was most common in the areas around Rhode Island, which at one point was known as the Vampire Capital of the world. This didn’t just happen in the United States though, this also spread to other places, such as Europe. In Europe, it wasn’t uncommon to also tie the feet together with thorns.

The most famous ‘vampire’ of this time was Mercy Brown. Her mother and sister died before her, and shortly after her brother and herself started getting sick as well. Her brother Edwin left and survived another decade. Mercy died shortly before Edwin came home. When Edwin came back 10 years later, his condition started worsening. The people, panicked, got permission from Mercy’s father to dig her, her sister, and her mother up. Mercy’s mother and older sister were little more than bones, but Mercy, having died recently in the winter, and having been kept above ground to bury when the dirt thawed, was still mostly intact. There was leftover blood around her heart, which although common, the townspeople took to mean that she was the vampire. Her brother drank her ashes, and died two months later.

This was extremely common in that time, and remained so until Tuberculosis was discovered in 1882, when the idea began slowly dying out. Tuberculosis, although now cured, remains one of the most deadly diseases in the world, with about 1 million people dying from it each year.

More Information Can Be Found Here

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-great-new-england-vampire-panic-36482878/

https://newengland.com/today/living/new-england-history/new-england-vampire-history/