Sentenced to Life by B.L. Sherrington
As the clock struck midnight, a cloaked woman walked into the parlour.
'Drinking blood are we, Erica?' she teased. 'It's 1894, must you forever be the stereotype?' She removed her cloak to reveal red eyes and hair as bright as the sun, in long silky plaits.
'Forever the comedian, dear Lucia,' Erica responded. 'I will never understand the distaste you have towards a bubbling cup of blood. If we are to live forever, why not behave as the humans believe we do?' The blood slid down Erica's throat like a creeping slug. 'How are the humans tonight?' Erica queried.
'Full of sin,' Lucia smirked. 'We'll soon be multiplying and they can test your theory.'
On a hardwood floor with failing bricks, Henrietta awoke to the sound of the guards stomping down the corridor. Was today her turn? With each approaching step, she lay there with trepidation. Each heartbeat faster than the last, Henrietta was in beads of sweat. The guard appeared at her cell, leering at her with saliva dripping from his torn pink lips down to his stiff leather boots. 'Margaret Luccan,' he called. Henrietta was elated. 'Time to meet the devil.'
Like a helpless child, Henrietta clasped onto the bars by the window, watching Margaret walk out of the jail, accompanied by two guards. They locked eyes when Margaret's head was placed on a plank of wood. The guards were grinning, giddy with joy, as Margaret's head was sliced off in one clean cut. Her blood dripped to the stone pavement like a slow rain shower. Henrietta was incapable of moving. She stood frozen like a statue, with droplets of ice falling down from her eyes instead of tears.
At dawn, the rain poured as if the sky itself had opened up. The rain dropped so loudly that the guards' footsteps were muted.
'Henrietta Swift,' he yelled, as she looked at him from the floor. Her time had come.
It was the longest walk she'd ever taken. The rats hurried while the spiders crawled around her, yet she was immune to their existence. With a guard attached to each arm, she stood in the docks. After two fleeting minutes, she was kneeling with her head on the plank of wood pointing towards her cell. The wind was blowing through Henrietta’s brittle hair. A tear streamed down her face when suddenly a bone-crushing wound came to her neck and everything turned to darkness.
Henrietta awoke screaming, in a dark room. It was small and cramped. She couldn't move. Pushing intensely, she realised she was in her coffin. As she screamed for help, the memories of her demise came flooding back. Finally freeing herself, she was greeted by Lucia and Erica, sitting either side of a cloaked woman.
'Henrietta Swift. I wondered how long it would take you.' Henrietta stared at them nervously.
'Ww-where am I?'
'The in-between,' she replied. 'Welcome to the end of your life. Tell me, Henrietta, what do you believe happens when your heart stops? When you are lying in a coffin and the dirt is poured on top of you, where do you go?
‘The afterlife depends on how you spent your time on earth. If you are worthy, you go to heaven and rest peacefully, as the humans would say. If you have sinned, if you have truly sinned, you go to hell. But those of us who are beyond repair are punished. Henrietta Swift, you are at the top of the list for punishment. You do not get the sweet release of death. No. Instead you are sentenced to live forever as a vampire.’
'A vampire?' Henrietta stammered. Her hair turned white. 'This makes no sense.' Her skin began to bubble.
'Your ability to understand your new existence is neither my concern nor my interest.'
Henrietta collapsed to the floor, wincing in pain. Her once oceanic veins, were now an unnatural shade of emerald.
'You are now a member of the undead. In all my years of guiding vampires into our community, I have never met such gruesome a soul.' Henrietta's eyes turned red, the poster child for sin. Her panic for her new form intensified when her teeth transformed into ivory blades. 'You weren't deserving of the afterlife, but you are a danger even to your own community. You shall live forever, but in solitary.’
Bellan stood silently, looking at an abandoned house. She gazed at its decaying aesthetic with delirium. Removing her cloak to reveal red eyes as bold as blood and a head of black mamba snakes slithering in rotation, Bellan was the epitome of death. She reached for a snake and swiftly snapped one in half. The remaining snakes screeched in terror. Stepping towards the ground, she placed the severed snake on the foot of the French doors. Within moments they multiplied till the house had a moat of mamba snakes, hissing in unison. Bellan was enticed by her snakes, giggling like a schoolgirl.
'Mistress?' Lucia called out. 'How long will she stay here?'
'Till she's felt ten thousand deaths.' Bellan replied.
'Ten thousand my Mistress?' Erica asked gleefully.
'Only then will the snakes disintegrate. She can walk freely then. If her victim's screams haven't driven her to insanity.'
True as Bellan stated, after enduring the pain of ten thousand deaths, Henrietta's cage collapsed. Pools of blood came shooting out of her eyes like balls of fire as she screamed with excitement. She stumbled to stand and stroked her platinum hair. She gazed upon her green veins while her black tongue licked her fangs. She spun around and, to her surprise, transformed into an African yellow bat. In the corner of her eye, she spotted a plank of wood from the collapsed coffin lying on the floor. Morphing back to her own body, she focused on the plank of wood and she remembered her execution. The flashbacks of her head lying on a plank of wood as the blunt blade tore through her skin like a crocodile snapping the bones of its victim’s carcass. It was as if she was back in her cell, paying for her crimes.
She forcibly opened the front doors to a ring of black mamba snakes hissing at her in unison. They locked eyes with Henrietta and let out a scream so high-pitched, only dogs could hear it. Suddenly, a collective bark began in the distance. The closer Henrietta got to the snakes, the more they shrunk, until they were specks of dust. She smiled gleefully, acknowledging her freedom.
Henrietta wandered around the mansion. It was large with creaking wooden floors, in desperate need of repair. She walked upstairs, stroking her hair. Three crows flew in through the broken windows. She shook with fright before carrying on upstairs, where she found three doors. Behind the first door was a larger than life bed, clothed with rotting silk bedding. Five decaying skeletons lay in the bed. 'Fit for a whorehouse,' Henrietta thought, stroking her freezing finger on the bed.
The second bedroom was grey. Haunted with innocence, silk was elegantly draped over a cot. There was a bookshelf full of adventures and sitting in the corner was a china doll dressed in blue, with ivory skin and soft blonde ringlets surrounding her rosy cheeks. Henrietta stepped closer to the china doll. She held the doll delicately in her hand, stroking her face with dismay, frozen in fear.
'Constance. Ernest. Charles.' she whispered. A red tear began to fall from her eyes, bubbling as it fell down her face, when she heard the door shut.
Clasping the china doll as tightly as she could, she peered over the staircase and heard a voice. Was it Bellan? Had she returned with Erica and Lucia to transport Henrietta to hell? Instead, it was a chocolate skinned girl with purple curly hair wandering around the room like a ghost. She stared at Henrietta's adolescent portrait. The brushes of paint sandwiched between her frail fingers and the canvas.
'As I live and breathe,' she smirked in a soft voice, flowing in purity. Her trousers clung to her legs and her black leather jacket was worn and battered. Henrietta was confused by her clothing. Was she also a vampire?
Henrietta transformed into a bat and flew out of the smashed window. She landed in the garden and stared at the girl. She transformed into her human self and ran for the gates. They shut forcibly as she touched them, throwing her to the ground. As she stood up, Bellan appeared with Erica and Lucia.
'Henrietta, what a joy it is to see you,' Bellan boasted. Henrietta backed away with apprehension. 'I must say you look delightful for a soulless wench. Nobody would think you've been trapped in a coffin for 125 years.’
'125 years?'
'Yes, time flies in a coffin, I suppose,' Bellan replied softly as her snakes wriggled, staring at Henrietta.
'Is my sentencing finished?'
'Finished?' Lucia laughed.
'Why would you be finished?' Erica cackled.
'After one hundred and twenty-five years, I have surely paid for my crimes.’
'You were sentenced to immortality. There is no afterlife for you,' Bellan stated. 'You were deemed unfit to co-exist in our community, so you were trapped decade after decade at the scene of your crime.'
Henrietta screamed, running her hands through her hair. 'Then why are you here?'
'To warn you,' Erica replied.
'If you harm a human, you will be punished severely,' Lucia teased. Henrietta stared at Bellan with everlasting fear. The three ladies morphed into bats and flew away. The gate flung open and Henrietta ran as fast as her legs would take her.
Roaming aimlessly, Henrietta found herself in an empty cemetery. Her steps were slow and steady until suddenly, she halted with no control of her body. There she was, face to face with the grave of Edward Carter. Her eyes screwed until her vision was blurry. Neither happy nor sad, Henrietta was overcome with disgust. She walked on until she was in front of a Coliseum covered in spray paint. She studied the engravings and saw: Damon Swift: 45 years old.
'My love,' she whispered. Ada Swift: 32 years old. 'My darling daughter,' Henrietta cried stroking her coffin. Suddenly a rustling noise appeared from outside of the Coliseum.
The purple haired girl from the house came closer. Henrietta hid behind Damon's grave. Her smell was intoxicating. Henrietta desired her blood like a new-born craved their mother's milk. She walked into the Coliseum and sat by Ada's tomb. Henrietta slipped.
'Who's there?' The purple haired woman yelled, taking a knife out of her pocket, clasping it with intent. Henrietta stayed silent. The purple haired woman asked again, raising her knife. She stomped towards Damon's grave, until she was standing over it.
'I will give you to the count of five to show yourself, or I swear to Lucifer, I will cut out your heart.'
Henrietta was terrified.
'One.’ Her blood was bubbling with anticipation. 'Two.’ Her chest was on fire. 'Three.’
Henrietta rose up in an instant and was face to face with the purple haired woman wielding a weapon. They looked at each other with pure shock. The resemblance was uncanny. The same oversized iris, bone structure, and wide noses.
'Who are you?' the purple-haired woman screeched.
'I mean no harm,' Henrietta announced. 'I just wanted to visit the graves,' she added.
'Why? What do you want with my family?’
Her family?
'Y-y-you are related to them?'
'I'm the last surviving Swift.’ Henrietta stared at her curiously. 'I won't ask you again, who are you?'
'Henrietta.’
They stood in silence, examining each other. 'Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, you're Damon's wife. And Ada's mother.’
'That's correct,' Henrietta answered.
'How are you breathing? You were killed over a century ago,' she asked, leading with her knife.
'They called me The Devil's Mistress,' she sighed. 'I am not breathing. I was sentenced to beheading by the Mayor of London, and condemned to immortality for my crimes. What is your name?'
'Darlene,' the purple haired woman replied.
'Darlene, such a quaint name.’
They walked through the cemetery in silence. 'What do you mean immortal?' Darlene asked. 'Like Wicca?' she wondered, dripping in distrust.
'I am a secluded vampire,’ Henrietta responded. 'I spent the last one hundred and twenty-five years trapped in a coffin. I want to see what this world is'.
Darlene stared at her. 'Do you like, drink blood?' Henrietta laughed. 'I crave it, but I do not need it.’
Henrietta could see the fascination in Darlene's eyes, as if she was more than she'd imagined. As they walked out of the cemetery, an ambulance passed, parking outside a block of flats. Shushing Henrietta to stay in the shadows, Darlene sneaked into the ambulance and stole two packets of blood. They ran down the road to an empty park. Henrietta devoured a half-empty bag of blood, her mouth stained like a lioness tearing through her prey.
'Why did you do it?'
Henrietta looked up at Darlene drinking her Jack Daniels. 'Have you heard of Edward Carter?'
'Yeah, he was your father, right?'
'He was a brute. He made a lion seem tame.' Henrietta cowered. 'When I was nine, he beat my mother to death.’ Darlene was engrossed. 'When I found him stood over her body, he covered every inch of me in bruises. I left when I was sixteen. I married Damon and within a year, we had Ada,' Henrietta smiled. 'Edward remarried to the orphaned Caroline Bokene, and they had three children. Constance, Ernest and Charles,' she sighed. 'I saw the bruises and the black eyes,' Henrietta cried.
'He was beating them?' Darlene asked uncomfortably.
'Daily. Worse than he had me, I think. Their deaths were a kindness.’
'Kindness?' Darlene asked sternly.
'I was always that 9-year-old girl, I knew I couldn't stop him,' she confessed. 'I ended their lives with dignity, not torture.’
The walk home was a comfortable silence. Henrietta arrived at the house, Darlene at her flat across the road. Inside the house, Henrietta came face to face with the painting of her father. Her blood was boiling, in utter repulsion. Transforming to her bat form, she tore it apart until it was a crumpled mess on the floor. Scream after scream emerged. Henrietta flew out to the garden and saw Darlene.
Flapping her wings at full speed, Henrietta came crashing into Darlene's apartment like an unstable eagle. Darlene was bloody, cowering on the floor as a large man raised his fist. Edward's dream come true. Henrietta was all that stood between Darlene and his tightly-drawn fist. Infused with anger as she stared at her relative, Henrietta edged closer to the brute. He licked his lips in contempt. She tossed him across the room, without a moment's hesitation. Rising up ready to fight, Henrietta's teeth sharpened, like a barber's razor. Her green veins began to bubble. She clenched her hands into fists and the air drained from his body. The blood came pouring out until he lay there, empty of life.
A hissing emerged. The ground was suddenly covered in black mamba snakes. They climbed up Henrietta's body.
'Run.’
Darlene stumbled to her feet and escaped to the Coliseum. A stream of bats flew in, with Bellan leading the flock. She circled Henrietta, studying her movements.
'I hope you enjoyed it,' Bellan whispered. Lucia spread Henrietta's mouth open wide and Erica lowered a snake into her. Henrietta screamed in agony as the snake ate through her body. In minutes, she fell to the ground, pale, her long locks disappearing, as her inanimate body succumbed to her second death.
'He needed to be stopped.’
Written by B. L. Sherrington
B. L. Sherrington is a London-based writer studying a master’s degree in Creative Writing. Sherrington is currently penning debut novel, Basilar, editing a screenplay, The Legend of Kuse House and is preparing to publish a collection of fantasy short stories, Orphic. When B.L isn’t writing screenplays, novels, short stories or poetry, Sherrington can be found living in the fictional worlds of the fantasy greats, attending theatre shows, watching cinematic magic, and planning trips around the world.
www.blsherrington.weebly.com