Village Disturbance

My wife, Sarah and I moved to a small village in a foreign country a few years ago. We wanted to explore different parts of the world and experience different cultures than what we were used to. So this place was the perfect fit for us despite its vast difference from America, where we spent most of our lives. But it still had many of the same things that any small American town would have, a police department, a few homes, a school, etc. It was similar in many ways but very different in others. One of the many differences that it had was a street market to buy various goods from.

My wife had gone into that market earlier and she said that she was planning on buying some ingredients for dinner that night. I said that would be great and I waited for about an hour before she came back. The front door was just by the living room so I could see her whenever she came in.

When she came back, I was taken out of my reading and I looked up to see her stumbling through the doorway. She looked red in the face and her skin looked damp with sweat. She had her hand on her stomach and her face was in a contorted expression.

"What's wrong?"

She struggled but let out a mumble and I almost didn't even hear it.

"I'm in terrible pain for some reason. I think something bit me while I was on my way to the market."

I was extremely worried and I rushed into the kitchen to grab the phone.

"I'll an ambulance."

I reached for the phone and dialed the emergency number. When they answered I explained to them the situation and they said an ambulance would be on its way soon. A few minutes passed and then they arrived, before loading Sarah in the ambulance. I followed suit as I got into the back and sat beside her. I tried to comfort my wife while she laid there on the stretcher but I could tell she was miserable.

When we got to the hospital, my wife was taken down the hall and into another room. When I tried to follow them I was stopped and told that I needed to wait in the lobby as she was in critical condition. I tried to protest but the doctor, who told me this, refused to let me enter and I was forced to wait quite a while before I heard any news regarding my wife.

After some time passed, a doctor came out of the room where my wife was being held and told me what he knew.

"Your wife will need to stay in the hospital for a couple of days", "We're going to have to run some tests on her to find out more about her condition and what may have caused it", "For right now I think you should go home and get some rest".

I said my thanks and left to go home. I heeded his advice and tried to get some sleep but I struggled to do so as my thoughts rushed through the day's events. I couldn't help but wonder what had happened to Sarah and I wasn't sure what to expect.

I certainly wasn't expecting the following morning phone call from the hospital. First they asked for my name and then they gave me some news.

"Is your wife there?", someone asked on the other line.

"No, she should be there, at the hospital. Is she not?," I asked.

"Your wife has gone missing and we've been looking all over the premises for her," he said.

I drove up to the hospital and they called the police. When they arrived, much of the staff was questioned and so was I. But nobody knew much about my wife's disappearance. What was known was that she had gone missing somewhere after midnight and during the early morning hours of that day. The last time she was seen, she was apparently sleeping and a nurse had just checked on her. After that nobody else saw her and when her room was checked the next morning, her window had been open. The police thought that maybe she escaped on her accord but when they asked why she would do that, none of us could really give an answer. Sarah wasn't that type of person and there was no reason for her to run away. The only alternative was that someone else snuck into her room at night and kidnapped her. Just the thought of that horrified me and my anxiety began to grow. The police tried to reassure me by saying that they would find her as soon as possible but that only did so much for my worries. Then once again I was told to go home and try to relax but that proved to be difficult obviously, considering the circumstances.

The next day and every day after that I would ask the police, either over the phone or in person, if they had any leads in the investigation but for weeks they didn't have anything. It wasn't long after the investigation that the rest of the village folk were questioned but none of them seemed to know anything and even if they did they certainly weren't telling the police anything. After a few weeks had passed, the police made an important press announcement in the village center and it was the first time I had heard about what they were talking about. The subject that the police were talking about in front of the crowd triggered the memory of me going into the town to go to the various local bars. I had been drinking very heavily since my wife had gone missing and it was my own personal way of distracting myself and coping.

But there was something particularly odd about the village that I noticed every time I'd leave my home. Like I said, the village was usually pretty peaceful and quiet but since my wife had gone missing and the police started their investigation, most people stayed inside. There was hardly any noise or commotion outside which was quite the contrast of the usual state of affairs in that place. There was usually some noise being made as many people would work outside and the village would sometimes get crowded because of this. But it wasn't like that anymore and I considered it strange but I just shrugged it off as nothing at the time.

Now I think I know why the village folk were acting like that. The police announced that there were several more people that had gone missing over the past few weeks and that they were investigation all of them. So far they hadn't found anyone and they asked everyone in the village to try to remain calm despite this frightening situation. It had occurred to me then that this was why most people were staying indoors and I thought that maybe my wife's disappearance was connected somehow.

After all the business was settled and done, everyone was told to go home and I returned to drinking my worries and sorrows away. A few weeks later there was another announcement by the police and this one was even more disturbing than the last. Several people had been found dead in the surrounding areas around the village and they were thought to be the possible missing people. So the police asked the families of the missing loved ones to come and identify the dead. I was among those who were asked and I noticed a few of the families were able to successfully identify their loved ones. Fortunately for me I was not among them as I did not see my wife.

But there were still several families that were not able to identify the various individuals. That meant there were still some people missing and I also noticed something else that was strange. When looking at the bodies, I noticed some unusual human like bite marks around the neck area. I asked the police about it but they said that they didn't know where they came from. They promised that they would look into it and everyone, including myself was told to return to their usual business.

By this time the police had upped the ante on their investigation and they had searched several indoor locations throughout the village. But none of them contained any of what they were looking for, especially not the missing people; none except for one location. A church had been searched several weeks later and they found several people alive, being kept in the basement. All of the church staff was taken in for questioning and the same families from before had been called to come to the local police station.

The police explained their findings to all of us there. They said that they had found these people trapped inside the church basement and they couldn't move or escape, due to being chained up. When they were found they were thrashing about violently against their chains and they kept making these strange yelling noises as they kept their mouths open the entire time.

Their skin was also extremely pale and none of them were responding to anything the officers said or did. The police brought them here to the station and put them into a large empty room, strapped to beds, as a few had gotten violent when released from their bindings. The police also said that they noticed something extremely odd about their teeth when they saw their mouths wide open. There were two fangs sticking out from the rest of their teeth and mouth.

We were asked to come in each individually and identify those inside that room to see if any of them were our loved ones. By this time everyone, including myself, was absolutely terrified of the description the police had given us and we were even more concerned about what we were going to see inside that holding room. It was frightening to think that there was even a chance of any of them being our loved ones and I could sense the tension among the crowd. All of us were shaking and breathing hard as we thought about what the police had said.

Some of the others were even crying. Then it wasn't long before each family was called upon and was accompanied to the holding room by an officer. A single woman was the first to go inside and it was only minutes before she ran out of the room while crying and practically screaming while the officer desperately tried to calm her down. Her face showed of both extreme terror and sorrow as it contorted greatly with that strange mix of emotions. Everyone, upon seeing this, was shocked by the sight and we couldn't help but stare at the poor woman as she fled out of the room while the officer quickly followed behind her.

Then the moment was interrupted as another officer called upon the next person to go inside. I was that next person, as I had been standing in the line just behind that woman and I walked towards the holding room while the officer followed. Immediately upon entering I realized why the woman had reacted the way she did and the sight before me was just as the police had previously described. The people were pale white and their teeth continued to show as they made those dreadful noises with their mouths. They thrashed about violently against the straps just as they had done before and I could see those terrible fangs. This shocked me and I stood dumbstruck for several moments before I was able to scan the various faces of those people.

That was when I saw my wife, my sweet, sweet wife as the last of the few in the corner of the room. Her reaction was just the same as everyone else's and even as I got closer, she only got increasingly more violent. It was then that I knew that whoever or whatever she was, she wasn't my wife anymore. None of those people were the same anymore and I fled the room just the same as the last woman, in defeat.