The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

There are 330 deaths per year on public lands in the United States. There are 1,100 missing person reports associated with National Parks since 2018. The true numbers are either obfuscated or unknown.

He had been watching her for most of the week. He tried to make a trip out here at least every six months but sometimes he could not stifle the itch and indulged more frequently. It always began the same way; he would pack up the car, drive to the park, and set up a base camp. From there it was a waiting game. It was always easiest during peak tourist season when the weather was nice and there was plenty of variety to choose from but this also made things riskier. It was often better to wait for early or late season despite there being fewer people around; it also meant that mainly the die-hard backpackers and campers were in the woods. The kind of people that like to challenge themselves by traveling alone into lesser known and rarely visited recesses of the forest.

He had been following her on her hikes. This park had a wide variety of long and lonesome trails to choose from and she seemed intent on hitting all of them, one a day it seemed, before returning to her campsite in the evening. On one of these days he had chosen not to follow her but to snoop around her campsite a little. Very carefully he looked over her belongings, gathering information about her, leaving everything looking undisturbed in a way that only learned skill allowed for. There was nothing out of the ordinary about her. He had seen a dozen others like her: young, confident in their abilities, perhaps too naive to understand the dangers of being this far out without a companion. Yes, she would do nicely.

The next day when she set out on her hike he followed her from a distance taking care not to be spotted. He would make his move this evening before she could return to her campsite.

The hike itself was uneventful and she never suspected that she was being followed. About a mile from her campsite, just as dusk was beginning to take over, he made his move. He crept quickly and noiselessly up from behind with a practiced gait that had never failed him and grabbed her around the waist. At that same moment he stuffed a chloroform-soaked rag in her face and in only a couple of seconds she was limp in his arms. He knew he had not been seen but still looked around intently just to make sure. Confident in his hunting abilities he threw her over his shoulder and left the trail, headed for his out-of-the-way base camp.

She had actually known she was being followed for days now. That was the whole point of her bi-monthly trips to the park. The chloroform trick was cute but hardly original and she had expected something like that. It had no effect on her, of course, but she played the part for the sake of what came next. Once back at the man's base camp he had crudely bound her and taped her mouth shut. He had left her alone for a few minutes to collect his tools and to wait for her to regain consciousness. It wasn't until he returned that he realized something was wrong. First, she wasn't unconscious anymore. She didn't even look disoriented. Second, she wasn't whimpering and crying. She wasn't distressed at all. She was just sitting there in her binds, apparently waiting patiently for something.

It was getting dark now and he was losing the light. That didn't matter; he had portable lanterns for just such a thing. He was still unnerved by how she was just sitting there though. He occasionally tried menacing her with a knife or cleaver to get some kind of reaction but that still elicited nothing. Maybe she was catatonic? He had read about people going into shock or into a kind of fugue state under extreme distress but he had never seen it himself on a hunt.

Suddenly and without warning she stood and flexed against her bindings. It appeared to be a minor thing for her, something like stretching after a nap, but it was all it took to break her bonds and the ropes fell away. She calmly pulled the tape from her mouth without a hint of discomfort. His eyes grew wide and he dropped the scalpel he was holding. He only had a couple of seconds to take in what was happening before she was on him and tearing his neck open with her teeth. It had never occurred to him that he was the one being hunted this entire time. As the light left his eyes the woman stood and wiped the blood from her mouth with the back of her hand. It was completely dark now. She didn't bother trying to hide anything, didn't try to destroy any evidence. The elements would take care of all of that. She collected her own belongings and walked off into the night.

There are 330 deaths per year on public lands in the United States. There are 1,100 missing person reports associated with National Parks since 2018. The true numbers are either obfuscated or unknown.