“Shhh!”

 

Jeffrey Herbert whirled around with his JVC digital camera in hand. “What, you heard something?”

 

Craig Hilt raised a finger to listen. No use. He dropped it back down with a sigh and shook his head. “God damnit, it’s gone now, the son of a bitch! You keep talking! I swear, I did not come out here just to go back to Bill and look stupid. We are finding this vampire tonight!”

 

Craig was right: they didn’t come all the way out to these woods just to return to the boss with nothing. The clearing they were in, with the endless longleafs encircling them, and the full moon obscured by occasional clouds—all of it had an eerie stillness, although the wind drove some branches rustling. Yes: of course, terror leaped into Jeffrey’s heart, prompting the sweat on his skin to turn cold—but he was prepared and thrilled all the same. They would find this vampire.

 

As if to confirm it, a wolf howled.

 

Jeffrey Herbert and Craig Hilt, two directors of the Nighttime Horrors Program, a low-budget TV series that only aired at night, had gone to the boss one night ago, reporting a woman’s call-in of a vampire sighting on Pecan Park Road. “This can get us lots of views, boss,” Craig had said animatedly. “Vampires are all dudes talk about lately, with Twilight and shit coming out.”

 

“No,” William Kensington had said. “We’re doing real horrors here, not supernatural vampire bogus.”

 

“Oh, what kinda shit is that, boss?”

 

“You heard me.”

 

After a long stare-off, Jeffrey had finally broken the tension. He threw last month’s paycheck onto Bill’s desk and leaned over it. “Fine. We’ll go out there and get the footage ourselves. If not? You fire us. If? You authorize the episode.”

 

Boss Kensington had smirked—wickedly: a real wicked smirk. Jeffrey and Craig had always gotten the feeling Bill had something against them.

 

“All right,” he’d said at last. “But you two better be careful. I’ve got a feeling this is going to be too much fun.”

 

And for no reason at all, he smirked wickedly again.

 

A branch cracked nearby, snapping Jeffrey out of this memory, and was then replaced by a distant flapping. He listened. A bird was using its wings—forcefully, it seemed—and getting rapidly closer. But he couldn’t see it anywhere nearby.

 

Suddenly, Jeffrey heard Craig's hysterical shout to his left and swung his camera in that direction. His friend was being carried away into the sky by an unnaturally pale figure with black wings and gleaming red eyes. Craig’s screams died away in the night. A moment later, he was gone.

 

Then Jeff’s camera swung in front of him, and from behind the towering trees caught six of them piling out, all side-by-side. They looked hideous—and ghastly pale. All female. Piss started to stream down Jeffrey’s leg.

 

He turned and ran. Branches clawed his face, the monsters who’d poured out pursued; he could hear their rapid footsteps gaining on him. Four more overhead appeared, and Jeffrey had to dodge at every downward swoop they made that would’ve picked him off the ground like Craig. Oddly enough, he was laughing. The vampires were real! He’d gotten the footage, and they were real! What would Bill make of this?

 

He broke free of the woods and came to the two-way road where they had parked the car, and that was when all the laughter zipped out of him as fast as lightning. He became motionless. The boss was sitting on the hood of the Honda, smoking a cigarette, as if he had been waiting for him.

 

“Ah! Jeffrey, my boy! I thought I’d find you out here.”

 

From a trembling hand, Jeffrey dropped his camera.

 

The boss stepped in front of him and placed a welcoming hand on his shoulder; the hand felt inhumanly plastic and cold. One question was all it took for Jeffrey’s puzzlement to turn into a click.

 

“Jeffrey, my boy ... you ever wonder why we only run the show at night?”

 

“Oh no ...” Jeffrey realized. “No! No!”

 

“Shhh. Now, now, it’ll all be over soon.”

 

The boss’s smirk split wider into a nightshade grin, revealing canine teeth grown hideously long and sharp. He stepped back and whistled to the woods. Dimly, Jeffrey could see the others circling around him, and at last he accepted it. He dropped to his knees, cried out—

 

—and the fallen JVC camera caught the rest.

​

J.S. Spencer is an upcoming author from Jacksonville, Florida. He mostly writes horror, science fiction, and thrillers, but occasionally drifts off to coming-of-age stories as well. He has received an honorable mention in the Writers of the Future Contest, has placed third in a horror contest at the Florida State College at Jacksonville, will have a horror short story published in the Shlock! Webzine for their November 2026 edition, and enjoys spending most of his time with his family.