A curated take on South Asian art, literature, life and news
‘Vetala: An Indian Vampire in London’ — An Excerpt From Sabina England’s ‘Urdustan’
Sabina England
Literature
Still no response.
Killer sighed. This was ridiculous. She turned around and out of frustration, she kicked one of the table legs hard. The table clattered violently. The mysterious girl suddenly growled and snarled. Killer jumped back, stunned.
“Wow,” Killer said with awe in her voice, “that was powerful. You sound like a wild animal. You must be really upset.” She studied the blood on the girl’s shalwar kameez and decided maybe the young woman had an accident and wandered into the slaughterhouse and maybe she had fallen through animal carcasses somewhere in a chamber. Maybe that was why there was blood on her dress, and maybe she suffered from amnesia.
“Mmm.”
She then noticed a trail of blood on the floor behind the girl and moved around to examine it. The trail was long, leading out of the bone-cutting lab.
“Where did this blood come from?” she asked the girl and then she rolled her eyes and muttered, “never mind. You don’t speak.”
Since there was nothing else to do at the moment, she figured she would follow the trail and maybe it’d give her clues where the mysterious girl came from. She followed the trail, and it took her out of her bone-cutting lab.
“Where are we going?” she murmured to herself.
The girl behind her quietly pursued her, barely making a noise. The trail was unexpectedly long, and it took Killer and the mysterious girl on a long walk through the slaughterhouse, passing by many different air-conditioned chambers where animal carcasses hung. There were cows, pigs, goats, turkeys, sheep, deer, and even a special chamber for exotic animals such as ostriches and llamas and camels who were slaughtered for wealthy customers to purchase and consume. All of the chambers were padlocked, but the doors had large round windows in which all of the carcasses were visible. Despite the thick steel doors shutting off the chambers from normal room temperature, the smell of raw, bloody meat was still very strong. Killer heard sniffing noises behind her, sounds of deep inhalation and then a soft growl. She turned and saw the mysterious girl wetting her lips, lustfully staring at the chamber window where exotic animal carcasses hung. The girl looked hungry, as if she wanted to break into the chamber and gobble it all up.
“You like raw meat?” Killer asked her. The girl made no response. She continued to wet her lips, looking through the chamber window. Killer shook her head. Weirdo, she thought to herself and continued pursuing the trail of blood. The trail took both women to the front entrance of the slaughterhouse and stopped there. There was a shabby reception desk and a sign-in sheet. Killer went around to inspect a large pool of blood behind the desk.
She was not prepared for what she saw.
The security guard’s body lay on the floor in a puddle of blood. His face had been ripped apart, his features were barely recognizable. His skin was so mauled to the point that the skeletal structure of his face were visible. His eyeballs were missing — his sockets were bloody and empty. His body had fresh wounds all over, his security uniform shredded like paper.
Oh my god oh my fucking god—
“Ethan!” she cried, “no!”
Tears rushed down her face in a hot stream. She dropped to the floor and held onto the floor with her fists, clawing for dear life, as if she would slip into the cracks of the floor. She sobbed hard that she had to gasp for air. The sight of Ethan’s mutilated corpse so extremely disturbed her, she started gagging and then vomited all over the floor. It was too much for her to bear. She fought hard to pull herself up back, even though her body shuddered all over.
“Who killed him?” Killer screamed out to no one in particular.
She didn’t want to look again, but she knew she had to. It was important that she understood what happened to him. She kneeled down onto the floor and studied his corpse as she struggled not to faint or retch. She pressed one hand against her mouth so she wouldn’t gag. Looking down at his body, she noticed large bite marks on his torso and arms and legs, like an animal had set fangs into his body and killed him.
As she squinted to study the bite marks in hope of recognizing the incisors and identify the animal that had killed him, a slight breeze brushed against her. She looked up. It was the mysterious girl. Killer’s eyes glanced down to the shalwar kameez and studied the blood on her dress. Under the long dress, Killer saw the girl’s feet but the feet looked strange — there were no toes. Killer craned her neck and searched the back of the dress. For the first time, she saw something weird about the girl — and Killer froze. The mysterious girl’s feet were backward. She wasn’t actually standing on the floor. Her feet floated just half an inch off the floor.
Killer slowly retreated from Ethan’s ravaged corpse and put herself in a defensive position. She finally understood.
Still no response.
