A Vampire Christmas Carol by Sarah Gray

Author:Sarah Gray
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corp.
Published: 2011-08-17T16:00:00+00:00

26

At last the dinner was all done, the tablecloth was cleared, the hearth swept, and the fire made up. The compound in the jug being tasted, and considered perfect, apples and oranges were put upon the table, and a shovel-full of chestnuts on the fire. Then, all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth, in what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half of one, and at Bob Cratchit’s elbow stood the family display of glass. There were two tumblers, and a custard-cup without a handle.

“That’s it?” asked Scrooge watching the pitiful little gathering. “Three glasses for the lot of them? How will they all drink from three cups?”

The spirit continued to gaze at the family gathered around the fire.

The meager cups held the hot stuff from the jug as well as golden goblets would have done, and Bob served it out with beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and cracked noisily. It appeared they would share the cups. Then Bob proposed:

“A merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us.”

Which all the family re-echoed.

“God bless us, every one,” said Tiny Tim, the last of all. He sat very close to his father’s side upon his little stool.

Bob held his withered little hand in his, as if he loved the child, and wished to keep him by his side, and dreaded that he might be taken from him.

“Spirit,” said Scrooge, with an interest he had never felt before, “talk of becoming a great vampire killer is obviously nonsense as the sister-in-law pointed out, but tell me if Tiny Tim will live. You know, to be a clerk or something equally useful like his father.”

“I see a vacant seat,” replied the ghost, “in the poor chimney-corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the future, the child will die as the aunt has suggested.”

“No, no,” said Scrooge. “Oh, no, kind spirit. Say he will be spared.”

“If these shadows remain unaltered by the future, none other of my race,” returned the ghost, “will find him here. What then? If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”

Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief.

“Man,” said the ghost, “if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered what the surplus is, and where it is. Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die while men and women such as Cratchit and his daughter, and the woman, Belle, are on the streets fighting to save mankind against what you conspire with?”

Scrooge shook under the intensity of the ghost’s admonishment. “I do not conspire with the vampires! They . . . they have persecuted me!” He was shaking from head to toe. “The . . . the visitor previous to you, he showed me what they did. How they conspired against me! I . . .

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