The Youngest Vampire (Synopsis)

Clark Ashton Smith

A man buys a deserted farm on which are four graves. One evening, by moonlight, he meets a girl of ten or twelve in the apple-orchard. Surprised, but assuming that she belongs in the neighborhood, he talks with her and learns that her name is Rosalind, a name which also occurs on one of the four head-stones. Later, he begins to feel that the place is haunted. He becomes ill and weak, finds a small wound in his throat several times, and awakens one night to see the child Rosalind just leaving his bedroom. At last he surmises that she is a vampire, and finds that the other three buried people are also vampires. With his last strength, he opens the graves and transfixes all the bodies with stakes. He dies, leaving a proviso (disregarded) in his will to the effect that a stake is to be driven into his own body.

^xxx^ xxx was added by Smith.
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