Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

his 113 colonists.
“I think,” said Henry, “that it is better he never learned the truth.”
Shortly after Governor White’s first return to England, the people of Roanoke were beset by a strange illness, which produced an acute fever in its victims. This fever led to delusions, coma, and eventually death.
“Dr. Crowley thought the disease a native one. He was powerless to curb its effects. In the three months following Governor White’s departure, ten of us succumbed to this plague. In the three months after that, a dozen more. Their bodies were carried a distance into the woods and buried, lest the sickness contaminate the soil near our settlement. We grew ever more fearful that ours would be the next body carried off. A near-constant vigil was kept on the island’s eastern shore, in hopes that sails would soon be spotted there. But none were. It is likely that things would have continued thus, had not the hideous discovery been made.”
Eleanor Dare couldn’t sleep. Not while her husband fought for his life a mere fifty yards away. She dressed, wrapped sleeping baby Virginia in a blanket, and walked through the freezing air to Dr. Crowley’s building, resigned to spending a restless night by her husband’s side in prayer.
“Upon entering, Mrs. Dare was met with the ghastly sight of Crowley with his mouth around her husband’s neck. He withdrew and presented his fangs, drawing screams from her. Thus alerted, several of our men ran into Crowley’s building with their swords and crossbows, only to find the woman slaughtered, and the infant Virginia in the vampire’s claws. Crowley warned the men to retreat. They refused. Having no knowledge of vampires, the men perished at once.”
Their screams woke the rest of the colonists, including Henry.
“I dressed and told Edeva to do the same, thinking it an attack by the natives. I charged into the night with my pistol determined to protect my home to the last. But on reaching the clearing in the center of our village, I was met with an incredible sight. A terrifying sight. Thomas Crowley—his eyes black, a pair of white razors in his mouth—tearing Jack Barrington in half, spilling his innards everywhere. I saw friends scattered on the ground. Some with limbs missing. Some with heads missing. Crowley took notice of me and advanced. I leveled my pistol and fired. The ball found its mark, piercing the center of his chest. But this failed to slow him in the least. He continued to advance. I am not ashamed to admit that all courage left me. I could think only of escape. Only of Edeva, and the unborn child in her belly.”
Henry turned and ran the fifty yards home as fast as he could. Edeva was already waiting in the doorway, and he hardly slowed as he grabbed her hand and continued toward the tree line. The coast. Let us make haste to the coas—
“I could hear him running behind us. Each step breaking the earth. Each one closer than the last. We ran into the trees. Ran until our lungs burned—until Edeva began to slow, and I felt his steps behind us.”
We will never see the coast.
“I remember none of it. Only that I woke on my stomach and knew at once that my wounds were mortal. My body lay shattered—my limbs all but useless. Dried blood over my eyes rendering me half blind. By the sound of Edeva’s labored breath, I knew that she was even closer to the end than I. She lay on her side, her yellow dress stained with blood. Her yellow hair matted with it. I dragged myself to her with two broken arms. Dragged my eyes close to hers—open and distant. I ran my hand through her hair and simply looked at her. Simply watched her breathing slow, all the while whispering, ‘Don’t be afraid, love.’ And then she stopped.”
By sunrise, Crowley had dragged most of his fellow settlers into the woods. He’d been left no alternative. Explaining a plague was easy. Almost as easy as explaining a man falling from a crow’s nest, or a girl jumping overboard, or a fisherman being attacked by savages. But screams in the night, followed by the disappearance of four men, a woman, and an infant? That he couldn’t explain. They would question him. Discover him. And that, he couldn’t have. One by one, he dragged their battered bodies away. Of his 112 fellow settlers, only one had been spared his wrath.
Crowley had hesitated to kill Virginia Dare. A baby that he had personally delivered? The first English soul born in the New World? These things had sentimental