Blood Libel is a fictional Vampire story by Leigh Ann Hussey concerning a young Jewish Vampire.

It appears in the book Vampires, edited by Jane Yolen & Martin H. Greenberg , Published by HarperCollins in 1991, ISBN 006026800X. The book is an anthology of 13 vampire stories written for young adults.

Summary

The story begins as a young man stumbled home from a Sabbath party at his brother-in-law's house. Suddenly and without warning a dark shape enfolds him and he collapses.

When he awakens, he finds himself buried in a coffin. He panics but succeeds in digging himself out. Finding that it is night outside, he covers his nakedness(with his shroud), and sets off for home.

But instead of rejoicing, as he expects, his family is terrified, and he leaves bewildered.

He wanders the streets until the sun rises. Its rays burn him and his feet automatically push him into the shadows. When people come out into the street, they scream and he flees the village.

Later, as the rabbi examines the grave, he watches hidden. Days pass into nights, and nights pass into days, and he finally realises that he was attacked and transformed by nosferatu. Now he was nosferatu himself.

As time passes he begins to be hungry. He tries to eat but only blood satisfies his hunger.

He finds himself in a dilemma. It was against the Law for him to consume blood. Then he thought of the unwritten exception to the Law: "any of the Laws may be set aside to save one's life, if it is a matter of life and death. "

One day as he is visiting his grave, he sees someone lying on the ground. He goes to help, but the man on the ground was as much helped as he could ever be.

Seeing the stake in the man's chest, he realises it is his attacker. When the sun turns the body to ashes, he swaps clothes with it, and leaves his fringed shirt on the ashes for his family to find.

He return home for a last time, sneaks into his room and gathers up his clothes. He hates to leave his phylacteries, but his family would miss them, and fear. He returns to his grave and gathers some earth from it in a pouch so he will always be near his grave.

Then he leaves and never looks back.

more to come

External link

• Read the story Online.