Katie Marie Robinson-Sherlock

28^th August

I spread my findings across the long oak table in the library, my hands trembling as I traced the family lines. It was all there: the Pritchards, the Carters, the Marshes, the Greenes. A web of connections tied them all to a single bloodline, a lineage that stretched back to the village’s first days. The family name, long forgotten in the day-to-day lives of its descendants, had once been prominent: the Albrights. Farmers and millers, merchants and blacksmiths, they had been among the first settlers here. Over time, the name faded, their descendants taking on the names of those they married, their legacy scattered like ashes in the wind. But the stranger remembered. He had followed them through the centuries, appearing at their funerals, marking their passing. Why? The question burned in my mind, but the answer eluded me.

I dug deeper, poring over personal letters, diaries, and any scrap of writing I could find. The Albright family, it seemed, had always been shadowed by whispers of something uncanny. A curse, some claimed. Others spoke of a debt owed, though to whom or what was never specified. One passage, scrawled in a crumbling journal from 1824, chilled me to the bone:

“He was there again, the pale man at Father’s burial. He said nothing, only watched. Mother told me not to speak of him, but I saw her hands shaking as she folded his letter. She burned it later, though I saw the words before they turned to ash. ‘Until the debt is paid.’”

The debt. Was it metaphorical? Spiritual? Whatever it was, the stranger seemed inextricably tied to this family line, a silent sentinel bearing witness to their demise. My research consumed me, day blurred night, and the faces in the old photographs began to haunt my dreams. I thought of the man’s pale eyes, his unsettling smile, and the way he watched the grieving with the intensity of a predator observing its prey. Then, as I turned the page of a brittle ledger from 1782, I found a name that stopped my breath: Albright. Beneath it, in a different hand, scrawled faintly in the margin, was the symbol I had seen before, a spiral encased within a square, like a labyrinth. Below it were the words, written as though in warning:

“Do not ask what he seeks. The answer is worse than ignorance.”

I found more references in journals and diaries written by long-dead residents. One entry, penned by a midwife in 1803, sent a chill down my spine:

“The Albright boy was stillborn last night, the mother’s cries shaking the very walls. Yet by dawn, the Pale Man arrived, his eyes cold as the frost. He took the child in his arms for but a moment then handed the babe back to it’s mother.”

Another, from a farmer’s account in 1848:

“The stranger came to my brother’s funeral, uninvited yet unquestioned. He stood at the edge of the crowd, watching with those ghostly eyes. That night, my wife woke to screams in the barn. We found the cattle in the morning their bodies cold as death.”

The deeper I delved, the clearer the pattern became. The stranger wasn’t simply attending the funerals; he was tethered to the Albright line, bound by some ancient ritual or pact. The notes I found grew darker, detailing rituals involving blood sacrifices and rites to prolong life. It seemed that The family’s curse was one of immortality, not for themselves, but for the one who haunted them.

As I flipped through one last crumbling volume, the spine cracked under the weight of its age. The title, barely legible, read Bloodlines and Binding: The Occult History of Grey Hollow. It was here, buried beneath decades of dust, that I found my first tangible lead.

A passage from 1751 caught my eye:

“It is said that the Albright clan struck a bargain, trading something most precious for prosperity. The details remain shrouded in secrecy, but the family has ever since been marked by strange misfortune and untimely deaths. Among them, a figure known only as the Watcher is said to attend their funerals, a harbinger of the curse that plagues their bloodline. His ties to the Albright line suggest a dark connection, perhaps not merely a curse, but a pact made in blood. Whispers of vampiric rites and the spilling of innocent blood have surfaced in hushed tones, though none dare speak of such things openly.”

I leaned back, the room spinning around me. A vampire. The word seems both absurd and inevitable.

The next funeral is already scheduled: a young woman, Elise Daven, whose tragic accident shocked the town. She was an Albright descendant, though the name had long disappeared from her lineage. Would he be there again, the pale man, watching from the edge of the crowd?

I resolve to find out. But as the day approaches, a new and horrifying thought takes root in my mind: Was it merely coincidence that I had come to notice him? Or had he begun to notice me as well?

29^th August

The funeral for Elise Daven is scheduled for this afternoon. My stomach churns with dread as I prepare to go. I can’t ignore the possibility that I have become part of this story, no longer just an observer but perhaps a participant in some dark ritual I barely understand. Will he notice me again?

Last night, as I lay in bed, I swore I heard the sound of footsteps outside my window, slow and deliberate, pacing back and forth. When I gathered the courage to look, the street was empty. But in the faint light of the moon, I could have sworn I saw two pale eyes glinting from the shadows.

As I went to close the window I caught myself, there on the windowsill of my first floor bedroom sat a small leather book, the cover bore the same spiral-and-square symbol I’d seen in the burial records. I closed the window and returned to my bed the book resting on the nightstand. But I could not sleep knowing it was there, in the end I turned on the lam and started to read. The writing was cryptic, but one passage stood out:

“The curse is incomplete. The Immortal seeks not merely sustenance, but a vessel, a worthy heir to carry forth his legacy. Only one of his blood can inherit the darkness, to walk the shadowed path as his equal. The others are but fuel for the fire, their lives feeding his eternal hunger.”

I closed the book, my hands trembling. He wasn’t just watching the funerals; he was watching them, weighing their worth. And now, it seemed, my research had placed me squarely in his sights. For what purpose, I could only imagine.

I did not return to sleep.

Now I must attend Elise’s funeral. When I return I will write again.

***

He was there, tall and impossibly gaunt as always, the same shadowed ageless face. He stared at me throughout the entire service. I held his gaze though not by choice. I simply could not look away. Ice had found its way into my body, holding me perfectly still, it only melted when the Watcher slowly turned his eyes from mine, releasing me. I stumbled backwards, my whole body aching with the force of the stillness I had endured.

When I recovered myself he was gone.

7^th September

The first strange death came just days after Elise Daven’s funeral. A young boy, healthy and full of life, was found cold and lifeless in his bed, his face pale and serene as if he had simply slipped away in his sleep. The coroner listed the cause as unknown. The whispers in town grew louder, though no one dared say the words aloud: unnatural. Then there were the animals. Dogs barking frantically at nothing, their cries abruptly silenced by the morning. Birds fell from the sky, their small bodies littering the streets like omens. And in the cemetery, the graves began to shift. Freshly turned earth, though no new burials had been made.

Driven by an obsessive need to understand, I have turned to the cemeteries. There were many, scattered throughout the hills and valleys surrounding the town, some so old that the headstones had crumbled into the ground. I spent the last few days trudging through the overgrowth, armed only with my notebook, piecing together fragments of a history no one else remembers.

I found it in one of the oldest cemeteries: a crumbling mausoleum hidden beneath a canopy of ancient oaks. The door was ajar, rusted hinges groaning as I pushed it open. Inside, the air was damp and heavy, and the floor was littered with shattered stone and dried leaves. At the far end, a sarcophagus sat half-buried in rubble, its lid slightly askew. The name carved into the stone made my blood run cold: Albright.

I leaned closer, my fingers tracing the letters. Beneath the name was the same spiral-and-square symbol I’d seen in the records. But what truly chilled me was the inscription below:

“Here lies the first. Bound to the blood, eternal in shadow.”

I staggered back, my lantern trembling in my hand. The first. Could this be the origin of the curse? The progenitor of the line the Watcher now preyed upon? As I turned to leave, I noticed something else: faint but deliberate scratches on the walls. They formed words, repeated over and over in shaky, jagged lines: He watches. He waits. He chooses. He watches. He waits. He chooses. He watches. He waits. He chooses.

14^th September

I have discovered the worst kind of thing.

It is one thing to poke about in someone else’s history, to uncover family secrets and truths that are not your own. But it is quite another to find that you have a personal connection.

I had accidentally stumbled upon it following a lead from an old journal. The graves were older here, their inscriptions barely legible, but one caught my eye. My last name, weathered and faint, carved into a stone so ancient it seemed ready to crumble at the slightest touch. A shiver ran through me as I crouched to read the full inscription. The dates were unfamiliar, but the name, Rebecca Albright nee Symmonds, my great-great-grandmother, was not. Had she married into the cursed family?

Suddenly, my blood was not separate from the cursed line. It was part of it. I was part of it.

***

I write now by the light of my bedroom lamp, I have woken in a sweat. Each noight my dreams grow more vivid. The shadowy figures now have faces, faces I recognise from the old photographs and family trees. They reach for me with skeletal hands, their voices clear, though still fragmented: You cannot escape.

When I woke, the sense of being watched was overwhelming. The Watcher’s eyes lingered in my mind, and I know, know with a certainty that turns my blood to ice, that I have caught his attention.

The next funeral is days away, but I am no longer an observer. I feel like prey. Yet, despite the terror, I can’t stop. The answers I seek are within reach, hidden among the shadows of the past. But the closer I come, the more I realise the truth is not something I can unlearn.

And somewhere, in the darkness, the Watcher waits.