INTRODUCTION
The Grave
Greece, 1503:
Against the backdrop of mountainous hills, drying soil and the recent harvest to gather the ripened olives after recent winter rains, the children ran out of three dwellings that sat near the olive trees. The movement of the Ottoman Turk army away from the area and the smell of spring drew them out to play in lingering mud. None knew who would be recruited for the Janissaries, the Christian sect of the Muslim army. None gave it a thought at all, except that they were cautioned to stay inside when the army moved through. None gave a thought to the superstitions of their parents only heard through the whispered sounds of nightfall.
Under their loud and raucous play, the ground trembled, as though they had awakened the sleeping underworld. The younger ones screamed "earthquake" and froze. But the older ones laughed and jumped around the quaking soil as if just another game.
Then one of them pointed behind the oldest.
A recently dug grave was moving and then a hand burst out of the ground. The corpse being animated nearly grabbed a child's ankle, missed, searched for it but the girl ran off. Frightened, they scattered back to their homes, except for the oldest boy, curious, recently pondering death. As the hand continued to extend skyward, a shoulder and part of a face emerged from the dirt. The boy backed up, step by step, watching as the corpse sat up in his grave, chest partly caved in from a spear wound.
The corpse eyes blinked dirt away and looked directly at the lad with an expression of hunger. The boy screamed, finally, and run to catch up to the others.
With his soul trapped inside a numbed corpse, Mikos watched their fear as his empty veins popped with desire for their blood. Why are they afraid? He heard voices of the demons, now animating his corpse, answer …
…worms crawling into dead pores, the underworld has hold of your mortal soul, the many mouths from the minds of corpulent worms stretching and growing with claws and the thirst of revenge.
Escape, get away, save yourself. Mikos struggled to loosen the rest of his body, covered in rocks and mud. Althea! He saw her in the beyond, drifting away into the the afterlife realm. But not him. Killed together. But he had allowed his afterlife soul to be claimed by underworld vengeance. The memory shot through him as he fought to pull his legs free from the grave. Feeling the agony of memory …
…wanting to scream but not feeling, not caring, the passionate wings of thirst beating through the mind with hate-filled need of vengeance, forcing the numbed corpse body upward through the mound of dirt.
Mikos leaned over and puked up the dirt of the grave from his lungs. A thick puddle of mud formed as he purged out the last remnants of being buried in his final stage of awakening.
"I did not ask for undeath," he screamed at the heavens.
Mikos could not feel this numbed corpse in which his soul was trapped by the demons of the underworld, a thousand souls once buried and warped with hatred for humanity. If he tried he could feel each of them coming alive inside him, souls who had been buried but could not escape as he now did, souls who were killed for no more reason than jealousy, fear or hate, now bringing those feelings alive inside him.
Mikos pounded his fist against his heart but his body remained a corpse. Dead skin. Numbed physical. With desire for both vengeance … and family. He had become vrykolakas … vampire of the Mediterranean islands, legend of the Cyclades.
Filled with demons demanding their fill of human blood.