Chapter 1

-1-

"Hello? Yeah, I'm preparing to go see a psychiatrist... Yeah, I don't know how long I'm gonna be there... Don't bother about my reasons for going there, all you've got to know is that I wanna save myself from insanity... hahaha, I'm not going crazy alright? It's just... never mind, I'll call you when I get back home, bye". She hangs up the call and throws the smart phone on the bed in her room and walks up to the mirror on the wall to finish her make-up. She adds lipstick on her lips and presses both lips together. She picks up a comb on the wooden table between her and the mirror where her make-up kits were arranged neatly and combs her long afro hair backwards and uses a hair band in her hand to band it. She walks away from the mirror after taking a second look at herself, feeling satisfied with the person she saw in it. She wears her black sneaker shoes which marched quite perfectly with the fitted sky-blue jean trouser and the black jacket she was putting on, and picks up her phone from the bed and walks out of her room. Shutting the door behind her. She comes out to the fresh new morning air outside. She stands in front of her apartment for a while, with a broad smile on her red lips, looking up to the clear blue morning sky, and looking back to the street and the people passing by.

"Good morning Natasha"! Her next door neighbor greets her with a bright smile and she returns a warm greeting back to her with a smile exposing her beautiful white set of teeth as she watched her walk down the street. "It's a new day in Kingston town. This is Jamaica". She says with a sigh and walks off into the street.

As she walked down the street, the look on her face turned pale like that of someone frightened. She felt the terrifying nervousness she experienced last night while heading home from work. Flashbacks of the scarry scene she saw in the woods that lied very close to the route she usually took out of this street kept hunting her. She rememberd how she ran for her life and screamed for help until she got out of the lonely path into the busy main street of her neighborhood. The things she saw were the last things she expected to see on earth; things people would never believe to be in existence. She knew that if she told anyone about it they'll think she had lost her mind.

She gets close to the rout of the forest and the heat in her stomach intensifies, her heart pounds faster. She looks into the woods but sees nothing except trees and grasses and squirrels running around. "I know what I saw. I know last night was not a nightmare". She says to herself and walks away. Finally getting to a bus stop on the main city road, she enters a bus that stops in front of her, and it drives off, after some passengers came out of it.

She comes down from the bus at another bus stop, and walks into the mental health unit building ahead of her. She walks straight to one of the doors in the passage that was labeled "psychiatrist's office" and goes in after waiting at the secretary's desk by the door. She shuts the door behind her after entering the office.

"You're welcome Miss Natasha". The psychiatrist said. Raising his head from the books and files on his desk. He is a brown man with curly afro hair, and he is putting on a yellow sleeve and a loosely knotted tie. He should be in his early 30s. "Please do sit". He gestures to a seat at the other side of his desk in front of him. She thanks him and sits down. "Sorry, my desk's all messed up with books, let me just get some of these together". He said as he arranged the books in piles on his desk. Natasha smiled as she watched him arrange the books, she admired scholarly people like him. "Ok, I'm done. Let's talk Natasha. What's bothering you"? He asks. Looking at her with a bright smile on his face, that was his own way of reassuring his Patients.

"Ok... I saw the scariest, weirdest and most terrifying site yesterday, and I don't think you'll believe me if I tell you the things I saw". She laughs. "They were so horrible that I fled and screamed for my life, but when I got to the streets of my neighborhood everything vanished! I thought I was hallucinating after they abruptly stopped chasing after me, but, it - it was so real, I could tell it wasn't hallucination".

"What did you see? What were the things that chased after you"? He asked with a very keen, insightful and inquisitive look on his face. Looking into her eyes.

"If I tell you you won't believe me".

"Try me".

"Ok... I saw giant vampire bats chopping off the heads of people with their claws, and drinking their blood, in the woods close to the route I usually follow back home". She said whisperingly. "And - and - and as I kept staring at the terrifying"_ she stops abruptly. Her heart pounded heavily with fear as the pictures of the incident panicked her.

"Calm down Natasha, calm down. Have a glass of water". He got hold of a transparent colorless glass water jug and a water glass on his desk. He poured water into the glass from the jug and gave it to her. She drank a little and held the glass in her hands. "You feeling better now"?

"Yes, I am". She answered after taking in and releasing a very deep breath. "I kept looking at the horrible creatures as tension rose high in me, I was shaking and gasping for breath, then all of a sudden they looked at me! My heavy breathing stopped immediately. It was as if the world had ended. Then they started coming for me, making all sorts of Scarry sounds, oh Gosh! I screamed and ran for my dear life with every fiber in me, but they were so fast and their eyes were red! I didn't believe I was gonna survive it, I thought they were gonna get hold of me and rip off my head and drink my blood like they did their other victims, but once I got to the busy street of my neighborhood that was brightened with street lights they vanished all of a sudden". She gulps down some water from the glass in her hand and remains calm and silent for a while. "I felt so scared and relieved at the same time after they disappeared. I ran so fast into my apartment and I locked the doors, shut the windows, turned off the lights, ran into my room, layed on my bed and buried myself under my blanket and that was the end of the night". She releases a heavy sigh with her eyes closed. She was shaking all over. "So, do you believe me Doctor? Or do you think I'm having mental issues"? She asked the psychiatrist who had been looking at her the whole time.

"I believe you Natasha". He said with a smile. Resting his back on the office chair he was sitting on.

"You do"?! She asked with a look of disbelief on her face.

"Yeah, since you were able to describe everything you saw in detail that alone is proof that you saw all of it".

" Wow... So you don't think I'm crazy"?

"No, I don't think so". He says, and she smiles. Silence filled the office for a while. "You watch horror movies a lot"? He breaks the silence with the question.

"Yes I... Oh I see where you coming from, you think I hallucinated due to my overdose of horror movies". She said with a look of disappointment on her face.

"But it's possible that you must have seen it in a nightmare, don't you think so"?

"No, I don't think so, I know I saw it in real life".

"Ok... So why did you come to me? Why didn't you go report to the police"? He asks calmly.

"I - I - I don't really know, I just felt I should talk to a psychiatrist about the vampires, to know if he'd think I'm crazy or not, if he'd believe me or not, then I'd know how to present the story to others. Because if those vampires keep killing more people as they did yesterday in the woods, they'll definitely kill more people in our community and might start attacking the city". She explained emphatically. The psychiatrist looked at her with a smile, probably thinking of the next question to ask her. She looks at him anxiously, wondering what thoughts were running through his mind.

"How many vampire bats did you see"? He asks.

"They were five in number". She answers. "They...they were as big as the size of a full grown man...their eyes were red, their faces were like that of angry dogs having long teeth, and they had wings like that of a bat. They looked so horrible". She anxiously put the glass that had been in her hands on the desk with some water remaining in it.

"Interesting"! He said in amazement of the things she described".

"It's not interesting, Doctor, people died! They ate humans! I saw them kill people and drink their blood"! She said with a rising tone of anger in her voice, and a very tensed look on her face.

"Ok, ok, I get you, calm down Natasha. You know what? I don't think you're crazy. You're not".

"You don't"?

"I don't".

"That's a relief". She says after a sigh.

"But, you know what"?

"What"?

"I'll like you to take me to that place tonight".

"What?! That's the last thing I'll do, I'm no longer taking that route home anymore, I don't want to be the next victim to be killed by those horrible creatures".

"You won't die Natasha, you'll be safe, I'm gonna be there with you, we're not gonna go into the woods. We're're just gonna stand at the exact spot were you saw them".

"That's dangerous, doctor".

" Don't worry we'll be safe, I've got a licensed gun, I'll come along with it. You know, I've got to see them too, and if possible get some video clips of them which will serve as an evidence when we go report to the police".

She releases a heavy sigh again, still being scared of the idea of going back to the vampire area, but she reluctantly agrees to take him to the place by 8pm, the exact hour she encountered the creatures. She thanks him and walks out of his office.