About Puncture Wounds:
The house at Green Corner has been standing there for fifty years now, surrounded by a tall fence and even taller hedges. And at dawn, bats flutter around the overgrown garden. No one has ever seen the owner of the house, let alone spoken to them. But early one morning, paper girl Maddie decides to venture beyond the tall hedges on a dare and finds something very unexpected…
Two modern vampire tales by Hugo finalist Cora Buhlert of 5000 words or approx. 18 print pages altogether.
Excerpt:
It began in a low-key way, almost unnoticed. One morning, while Brett was in the shower, getting ready for his day, he spotted a red inflamed spot and some dried blood on his right calf.
Memories of waking up at night to a brief stab of pain and an itching leg came back, faint and confused. Most likely, it was just the bite of a stray mosquito that had somehow gotten into his bedroom. Though he hadn’t heard any buzzing, which was strange, cause buzzing mosquitos always woke him up.
The next morning, it happened again. Brett found some blood, just a few droplets, on his pristine silver grey satin sheets. And then in the shower, he discovered not one but two inflamed and bloody spots on his left thigh, maybe two inches apart. That damned mosquito sure was determined — and hungry, too. Just odd that Brett had neither heard nor seen it.
On the third morning, Brett woke to two bloody, itching spots on his right arm. He cursed and wiped off the trickle of blood with some aftershave dabbed onto a tissue, biting his teeth against the sting. And then he noticed something even stranger. For the bloody spots were no mosquito bites at all. They were a puncture wounds. And so were the marks on his calf and thigh. A shiver ran down his spine.
Nonetheless, Brett dismissed the whole thing. It was probably just some kind of freak accident. It had to be. He’d accidentally stuck himself with a stray needle or a pin or a glass splinter, which had somehow gotten into the bed. Shit happened. Though he did go to the doctor to get a tetanus booster shot, just in case.
But then it happened again. This time, the wounds were on his right hip. Two neat puncture wound that had bled onto his pyjama pants.
Now, Brett did freak out a little. He searched his entire bedroom, literally turned it upside down, looking for something that might have caused of those mysterious wounds. But the search turned up nothing. No stray needle or pin, no glass splinter, nothing. Nothing except for a few droplets of blood on his no longer quite so pristine silver grey satin sheets.
Those wounds weren’t an accident, Brett realised. Someone was deliberately attacking him, but who and why he had no idea.
Not that it mattered much, because it wouldn’t happen again. Brett would make sure of that. And so he had a brand-new lock and chain installed on both the front door of his apartment as well as the bedroom door and the window.
Feeling perfectly safe, he went to sleep that night. Only to wake the next morning to two more mysterious puncture wounds, this time on his left wrist.
Now Brett panicked. Who were those people — if it was people and not aliens or something like that — and what were they doing? Were they giving him injections or taking blood samples? And for what purpose? Were they trying to infect him with HIV or Ebola, turn him into a drug addict, poison him? Were they planning to steal his kidney or liver or heart or just his blood? What did they want?
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About Cora Buhlert:
Cora has been writing, since she was a teenager, and has published stories, articles and poetry in various international magazines. She is the author of the Silencer series of pulp style thrillers, the Shattered Empire space opera series, the In Love and War science fiction romance series, the Helen Shepherd Mysteries and plenty of standalone stories in multiple genres.
When Cora is not writing, she works as a translator and teacher. She also runs the Speculative Fiction Showcase and the Indie Crime Scene and contributes to the Hugo-nominated fanzine Galactic Journey. Cora is a finalist for the 2020 Hugo Award.
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