28 Days of Night

Tay Von Haifisch

Day 1


I was washing the dishes when it happened, my cold hands paused in a sink full of soapy water and holding a just cleaned coffee mug. My eyes were staring out of the carefully constructed window right in front of me, my husband built it so I could watch my daughter play out in the snow rather than stare mindlessly at a colorless wall. I should’ve been watching my daughter like a good mother, but my gaze drifted off to the hill behind her, I watched as sunlight everlasting was now leaving this part of the world. It was never to be seen again for a while and I’d hope I would have to avoid this utter void, but it was a chance too late. Already the orange was fading into the dark abyss of space, the yellow absorbing into earth’s ground, the red burning whatever blue left of the day. The pink and purple sky lingered around for only a minute until the colorless black and blue starry night took over, and that was it. No more. The last day of sunlight for the next 28 days.


I was so distracted by the last sunset that at just a tiny knock on the window in front of me caused my hands to loose their grip on the coffee mug and let it drop down into the sink, thankfully the water broke its fall and it didn’t break.


“Sweet mother…” The glass on the window in front of me was starting to fog up, and I glared down the windowpane to look at my creeper. Lisbeth had her mouth pressed up against the glass, breathing in and out and looking straight up to me with her dark green eyes.


“Mummy” she waved her black mittens all over my window, smearing mud and snow all over, I could only sigh my stress of having to clean the window again and point a soapy finger to my right, which was her left, to tell her to come in and get ready for dinner. Before I knew it, the door was slammed wide open, banging against the wooden walls and in came the six year old of mine, stomping the snow off her feet onto the wooden floors and dragging the heels of her snow boot all the way into the tiled area of the kitchen.

“Not in the house, Lisbeth” I gave a sideways glare to her, but she ignored me, and sat down next to my feet and pulling off her boots. My daughter looked sickly pale from playing outside, but its not like she doesn’t already look like that usually… She’s naturally pale skinned with almost black chocolate hair hanging down to her waist. I never bothered to really cut her hair, except for a few trims of course. I just couldn’t bring myself to cut it off and leave her running wild with normal length hair, like me.

“Hey mummy?”

“Hm?” I dried my hands on the purple towel hanging on the oven and made sure our dinner was sitting in the microwave when I pressed heat up, and the unknown countdown began. I tried to find something else to do, but there was nothing really to do, considering I’ve already cleaned the house five times and washed everything. Remembering Lisbeth was begging for my attention I turned back to see what she wanted, and she wasn’t there anymore! “Lisbeth?” no reply, “Lisbeth?” the kitchen was void of my daughter…. Where could she have gone in the one second I turned around? “Hello?” I was about to check in her room when I felt this sticky, wet, and warm thing crawl up the back of my arm. Ewe…. What is it? My eyes turned to the side only to see Lisbeth caught with her tongue hanging out of her mouth and running up my arm. “What are you doing?” my automatic response was to jerk my arm away, which I did and it made my daughter happy to see me grossed out.

“I’m hungry,” she simply stated before walking back over to her seat.


“Was it really necessary to lick me though?” I arched my brows at her little answer.


“Daddy does it all the time to you when he’s hungry, except, he does it to your neck, I’m not tall enough yet” Lisbeth shrugged. I keep telling Anton that he shouldn’t do that in front of her, lest she licks some poor kid at school. Imagine when the teachers ask her why she did it, because I was hungry, she’ll retort with a snooty little smirk. Where did you learn that? They’ll ask, and the obvious answer is Daddy does it to Mummy when he gets hungry. Oh my… the extensive meeting on explaining why my daughter picks up these habits of harassing others… I glanced over to the dining table and saw Lisbeth pulling off her purple snow jacket and draping it on the back of her chair just as the garage started to sound. “Daddy’s here!”


Speak of the devil… my husband walked right into the kitchen, his hair neatly pulled back by a rubber band, and his chin covered by some freshly grown hair. Anton was finally home after selling off the fur and meat from his latest hunting trip, and I was glad, considering 28 days of night just started tonight.


“Hallo, Auweh” Anton leaned over Lisbeth to give her a kiss on the forehead, then smiled as wide as he could and kissed me right on my lips. I gave a gentle kiss before realizing I was making myself pull away, embarrassed at the fact Lisbeth was watching.


Beep Beep


“Oops! Dinner’s ready darling!” the microwave beeped for my attention and I ran across the kitchen just to shut it up.


“I got home at just the right moment then, eh?” Anton quietly pushed Lisbeth towards the kitchen, saying something in his native tongue to her as he sat. Lisbeth dutifully responded in perfect German, which made Anton beam with pride at our six year old. Quickly I grabbed the hot bowl of our steaming dinner and took it the counter where three bowls awaited with dried noodles, just waiting to be soaked up by the dinner. Pouring the soup, I noticed the chains outside our house clinking together at a loud and fast pace, but I chose to ignore it and serve dinner.


“Enjoy,” I muttered, placing the red soaked noodles in front of my family and me.


“Looks tasty, Auweh”


“Why thank you, considering you,” I motioned to his bowl. “Normally don’t eat like this”


“I like a bit of change in the way I drink my blood every once in awhile” My husband pointed to me with a noodle wrapped fork, the red liquid steaming up into the air, and dripping as well back into the soup bowl. I smiled at my husband before resuming to eat. No reply was needed because of his stupid little smirk. Had I said something he would’ve only told me He prefers my blood more and…


“Lisbeth” I looked at my daughter and noticed she was wearing the same smirk as Anton at the same moment.


“What Mummy?” that silly smirk she inherited…


“Eat”


“Hey mummy”


“If I answer the question you’re about to ask, will you go back to eating?”


“Yes Mummy” Lisbeth rolled her eyes, and carefully laid her cheek into the palm of her hand, which was propped up by her elbow on the table. “Can I go over to Marie’s house to play one day?” Without breaking eye contact, she ate a mouthful of noodles and awaited my reply.


“Who’s Marie?” Anton butted into our conversation, looking both at Lisbeth and me.


“My best friend, I promise I won’t lick her, or try to drink her blood, pretty please! Please mummy, please daddy!” Lisbeth begged.


“Promise?” I asked.


“Cross my heart and hope to be a vampire” Lisbeth crossed her heart with her finger and smiled a toothy grin. Anton reached across the table and pinched her cheeks, revealing all of Lisbeth’s pearly whites and baby fangs.


“You’re already a vampire, Auweh, I don’t think that promise will work” he laughed then let go of Lisbeth’s pretty face.


“Fine,” she sighed. “Cross my heart and hope…. Hope to... Can I just be a good girl?”


“Yes sweetie” Dinner was going smoothly, I was just about done with my bowl of blood and noodles when out of nowhere there was a loud barking at the kitchen door. Noticing the strange barking, Anton looked at me.


“Did you forget to feed them again?” he arched a brow at me.


“What? I’m a dog trainer; I don’t think I’m allowed to forget to feed our secondhand children” I said as the barking got worse, it was almost to the point where Anton was about to throw out a bone for our dogs just to get them to shut up, but then the yelping began, along with some howling, and finally there was a growling sound the caused Anton to get up and check out the dogs. Lisbeth scrambled to chase out after her father, who ran out the door to stop the fight I was assuming was going on, and I jumped up to stop Lisbeth from going out at the door.


Through the outdoor lights attached to the outer part of the house, I could see Anton’s sled dogs struggling to get out of their little chains that kept them on our property, the chains are fairly long, but it was like they were gnawing at the base to get out…


“Akira! Quit it! Lilith! Taylor, help me unleash them” Anton called for me to unhook their long leashes.


“You’re going to let them loose?” I knew there wasn’t another sled dog race for a few months, but…. Letting them loose into the woods?”


“We’ve had the dogs all their life, they’ll come back eventually” Anton unhooked Akira, the main female dog in our group, and she flew off the property! The moment I unhooked White fang, he ran after his mate, right off into the woods.


“What’s wrong with them?” I couldn’t figure out what had them so spooked, what was causing them to attack the chains, to get crazy? They’re hybrids, yes, but that doesn’t exactly make them behave crazy in the middle of the night….


“I don’t know…” Anton finished releasing the last one, and we watched her run off into the woods with the rest of them, and I stared off into the dark night, towards the nearby woods they’d ran too. I could make out a shadow of something near the entrance of the forest, but ignored it, knowing it was more than likely my imagination and the shadows playing tricks with my eyes.


“What do you mean you don’t know?”


“I honestly don’t. Maybe something scared them?” Anton made an assumption, shrugging his shoulders. Then he just grabbed my by my waist and walked me back into the house where a silent Lisbeth stood.


“What’s big enough to scare them? These are our hybrid wolves we’re talking about. Half dog, half wolf, what’s going to scare a combo like that?” My mind was searching for answers, but nothing answered the strange event.


“Don’t worry, they’ll get over it and come back, come on, let’s finish our tasty dinner.”


“Don’t lie to me, I know you don’t like it as much as you’re usual way of feeding” I stuck my tongue out, sitting back in my normal spot, pushing the whole dog thing to the back of my head.


“Auweh, it’s a lovely dinner, it is” Anton whispered behind me, kissing the top of my head.


“You think so?”


“No” Lisbeth hissed from across the table.


“I wasn’t asking you” I mocked her voice and hissed back at her.


“I wasn’t asking you” she mimicked.


“Meh meh meh” I made pretend fangs with my fingers and covered my real ones and pretended to gnaw at the bowl.


“Meh meh meh!” Lisbeth did the same thing back, but we both giggled at the end, Anton laughing at our weird little gestures, and us and the night was back to normal. At least… for tonight.