The slayer pushed his heels firmly into the ground to pack as much mud as possible onto the bottom of his shoes. He’d found that to be the most effective way to soundproof one’s footsteps, and considering that most of the houses he visited were old and creaky, he needed as much stealth as possible. James Waverly was what one in the industry might refer to as a “purple patch” slayer; that is, one who enjoys a great deal of success, but isn’t expected to go down in history. He was eager to avoid that reputation, but he had spent most of his career hunting small-timers. These were your typical follow-a-girl-down-a-dark alley sort of vampires, or roadkill feeders who walked the highway and chanced upon the occasional hitchhiker. They were the naive sort, who knew nothing but hunger and let it dominate them, making them very easy to find. Waverley’s count was at two-hundred-and-three kills, one-hundred-and-eighty-nine of which had never heard him coming. The others were only minor skirmishes, no match for a man of his training, yet still there were scars. Not just physical, but psychological too. More than half the time, he hadn’t been able to save their victims. Vampires move fast and bite faster, and even the greatest slayer couldn’t match them. What they relied on was stealth, and cunning. 

Waverley was good, but he couldn’t help the feeling that all he was ever dealing with were simple vermin, given they were relatively young and foolish. The most dangerous ones were the hardest to find. They were devious, an advantage of centuries of experience, and converted more humans than any of the younger ones ever did. The young ones thought mostly of food, whereas the elders thought more about survival. Not just of themselves, but of the species. Two notable examples had eluded Waverley for nearly ten years now, but perhaps tonight would be the night to change all that.

Their names were unimportant, for they had changed a dozen times throughout history, but their legacy was clear to see all across the Americas and Europe. Between them, they had recruited thousands, and inspired multiple generations of vampires that Waverley had encountered throughout his career. And yet, these two specifically had eluded him. Until now. A tip off from an old source, (and an old flame), had led him to a house in Shropshire. He was standing opposite that house now, caking his shoes in mud, trying to bring his heart rate under control. 

For all his experience, he knew the old ones weren’t to be underestimated. They had thousands of victims between them, and were indirectly responsible for thousands more. They would be crafty, and have absolutely no mercy if he made a mistake. But many more lives were at risk if he didn’t act now, and the longer he waited, the greater advantage they would have. While the sun was still up, they had nowhere to run, and Waverley had the element of surprise. 

He breathed deeply, spat the bad taste in his mouth onto the ground, and went over to the house. The plan was to use the back door, but when he saw what was on the front doorstep, the plan changed. A neat pile of ashes, still simmering slightly in the afternoon sun, sat there outside the door. He moved closer, inspecting it, and realised that it was the remains of a vampire. Maybe not the ones that he was pursuing, but a vampire had definitely died here, and recently. Either by stake or by sunlight, it was one less problem in the world. He looked up, noticed the door was slightly ajar, and couldn’t help himself. A wiser man might say this was a trap, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d find the answers he was looking for inside. The slayer took one final look at the street, his heart rate nowhere near as low as he would’ve liked, but pushed slowly into the house all the same. 

It was empty inside; even if someone was hiding, he’d know. He always knew. The only thing that lingered here was the smell; a kind of harsh, clinical scent that only came with years of vigorously cleaning the same spot over and over again. A slaughterroom, no doubt. The old ones always had a slaughterroom. But the slaughterers were nowhere to be found. What awaited Waverley was not a trap, but a letter, sitting on the dining room table. It had his name on it, and the moment he saw it his heart pounded in his chest. He took the letter in shaking hands, and slowly opened it. Nothing in the envelope except for paper, and on it read:

Dear Mr Waverley, 

I know that you’ve been pursuing us for quite some time now. Nine years may seem like a blink of an eye to people with our particular affliction, but I assure you we feel the passage of time the same as you. I’m afraid the contents of this letter may be a disappointment to you, given how much of your life you have dedicated to finding us, but I regret to inform you that you will not have the satisfaction of terminating us yourself. Oscar, my beloved sire and companion of the last century, has sadly passed away this week, and I’m afraid that I plan to follow him soon. Naturally, this may seem like a great victory for yourself, but I’ve known more slayers than you have known people, and one thing I know about them is that they crave the catharsis of killing their prey just as we crave the sustenance of blood. So, in that respect, I apologise. But this letter isn’t intended as a provocation – it’s intended as my confession. 

Let me first clarify exactly who I am, for I know you slayers like to document your work very meticulously. I’ve been living under the name William Chambers for the past hundred-and-thirty-eight years, but I was born Willem Van Pelt, and went by that name until my death in 1886. I was a journalist in my human life – nothing special, just a reporter at The Evening Standard – but you may be able to find some of my articles if you wish to include them in your account of me. It was this profession that took me to Pennsylvania in 1886, where I would meet Oscar and eventually begin my transformation into what I am now. He was a good master to me, and I believe that I was a good familiar to him. Even in 1886, Oscar had been alive so long, (and taken many names, which may make his lineage difficult for you to track), that he was already beginning to succumb to loneliness, which is how I convinced him to move back with me to England. I think the fear of being alone was greater than his fear of leaving his homeland. I want you to know these things because as I’ve stated, this is a confession, not just of the crimes that I’ve committed (the details of which I will touch upon shortly), but of the lives we creatures live, for I believe there are far too many misconceptions. People assume that vampires convert humans because they want to make more vampires, but that is not always the case. We are far more concerned with the survival of ourselves than the survival of our species, and I’ve learned that the greatest threat to our existence is in fact loneliness more than anything else. 

Something else you should know is just how limited we are as a species, given our longevity. You and your colleagues may assume that eternal lives must mean eternal minds, but sadly this is not the case. In my experience, even the undead mind is finite, and therefore when one has lived long enough, old memories have to make room for new ones. You could say then that we are in fact different people throughout our lives. Another thing you should know is that, impossible as it sounds, our brains can indeed deteriorate given enough time and the right kind of conditions. This is probably why a lot of vampires choose to travel and seek out new cultures so often, not just as a means of keeping themselves hidden, but to exercise their brains. Oscar and I sadly didn’t heed such advice from our counterparts, and that may explain the reason for his deterioration. Oscar suffered from dementia at the end, lost in millenniums of memories, and I fear that if I carry on then I may ultimately suffer the same fate. But I won’t let that happen. 

Dementia is the only term that I can think of that makes any sense, and to think he went through all that on my account breaks my heart. And yes, contrary to what you may have heard, we do still feel. Even if our hearts no longer beat, the suffering goes on. We are monsters, that much is true. Between us, we have killed countless people and have very rarely discriminated between good and bad, man and woman, old and young. But the blood lust is an addiction, and it’s the thing that actually drives these dead bodies we inhabit. We work for it, not the other way around, and just as one may receive mental clarity after the act of sexual intercourse, we too feel it after the act of killing. When I was a young vampire, I would sit alone for hours after eating, to let the shame wash over me. It got easier as time went on; when you’ve lived a couple of human lifetimes then you start to see just how disposable life is and that can help you live with yourself, but the feeling never really goes away. The shame, the horror – it just gets better at hiding itself. I think that’s what started haunting Oscar near the end. He would cry out the names of the dead in the night – I knew this because some of the names he cried were his family, whom he had slaughtered not long after his rebirth. I don’t think they go anywhere, the dead, they all come back around in the end. They haunt you at the end of your life, and a vampire’s life is very long and exceptionally violent. Even when his mind started to go, the horrors of his life, hidden away for centuries at the back of his mind, finally found a way back in. Every vampire owes a debt, and Oscar’s has now been paid in full. By the end, he was a shell of his former self. Quiet, uncomfortable – even the taste of blood would not satisfy him. I should have seen it coming, but maybe some part of me let it happen, as I could see the pain in his eyes, and wanted to repay the kindness he had shown me with mercy. Oscar walked out of the house one morning, at a time when vampires should be sleeping, and burned to death in the sunlight. Naturally, I was devastated. I hope the day was beautiful at least, but when I found the ashes of his remains, I swore that I would not let myself endure the same fate. Not the dying – I’ve died before – but the suffering, the decline of the man I knew and loved, to the point where death was more of a necessity than a choice. I decided that I would feast one more time and then step out into the sun myself, but the woman made things complicated. 

Her name is Emma Bell, and before you ask, she is still very much alive. She cleans for one of our neighbours from time to time, so I’d seen her from afar but never up close. I decided she would be my final kill before I died, so when she was leaving work the other day I followed her for a while. But when I saw her face, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. You see, before my human death in 1886, I was engaged to an English girl named Olivia. Naturally, human courtship was no longer necessary after my conversion, but I did think about her from time to time. Oscar even offered to convert her for me, but I decided against it. Olivia was kind. I was worried she might not be if she became like us. Emma looked like her, may have even been a distant relation of some kind but I suspect I’ll never know. But she looked just like her, and then something occurred which has not happened for a hundred-and-thirty-eight years – my heart began to beat. I didn’t even think it was possible, but that is what happened. I couldn’t kill her. There was still a part of me that was still ineffably human, and the moment I saw her face, it spoke to me. Worse still, it hasn’t stopped speaking to me since. Even though my heart no longer beats, the shame of everything that I’ve done has washed over me, day by day, torturing me every waking minute. That is why I had to write you this letter when I found out you were looking for us – some friends of ours had encountered you on your travels and had kept our location secret from you, though we knew you’d never relinquish in your pursuit. When you find this house eventually, and along with it the remains of two dead vampires, I want you to find this letter and what’s attached to it. 

You see, the names of the dead came to me just as they had come to Oscar, though a little earlier than I expected. I knew I had to write them all down before I forgot them, otherwise they would become lost in time just like all the others. After that, I will step into the sun and be with Oscar. I just hope it brings me some peace, even though I know I don’t deserve any, but this list of mine is already ten pages long and I’m not even halfway done yet.

Finally, if I could leave you some advice, as a man who really has seen everything, it’s this: there are horrors in this world far worse than the undead, and better the devil you know, than the devil you don’t. 

Yours, 

Willem Van Pelt 

25 May, 2025

He let the letter fall to the floor, then sat for a while in one of the armchairs as he looked at the stack of paper sitting neatly on the table. There had to be at least fifty pages there, filled in, front-to-back, with the names of all their victims. It made Waverley feel sick. He considered burning the house to the ground, to wipe it clean, but he thought better of it in the end. After all, this house was old, and may just attract more vampires in years to come. Then he would come back, and maybe he would finally slay an old one. But for now, James Waverley walked out of the house as the sun was slowly going down, and braced himself for another night against the darkness. Small-timers would do for now, and there was no hurry to find anything worse.

Better the devil you know, after all.