As I’ve been working on HorrorDailies, many of my friends have been incredibly helpful with  inspiration and suggestions, some solicited, some not. I’ve been under the weather the past couple of days, so while I have ideas… simmering… I haven’t managed to finish anything. My good friend Fran Hutchinson made a suggestion that I felt would be better served if she wrote it. And so she did, and I’m pleased to present it here.

Vlad settled into his satin-lined coffin with a sigh of contentment.  A full feed always made him sleepy, so he left them until shortly before sunrise.  His wife followed right behind him, lying in her adjacent, more ornate coffin in preparation for a good day’s rest.

“Rest well, my love,” he whispered.  After two hundred and fifty years, some habits would never be broken.  Except this time… no reply.

“Elvira? My love, I said ‘rest well.'”  The customary reply, “And you, my dearest.” was not forthcoming.  The silence was so jarring, so… disruptive… he could not let it remain.  He sat up in his casket, gazing at the immobile face of his wife.  “Dear?  What is wrong?”

She sat up to face him angrily.

“Is it too much to ask,” she hissed, “that after you drain the last captive you do not put him back in the dungeon?”

Much chastened, he rose to go and dispose of the body in question.

“I really try to remember,” he muttered.

“Well, try harder.  And don’t forget to put the lights out before you repose.”

Some habits would never be broken.