Marc R. Soto, “Siempre en mi recuerdo” [Forever in my Memory] (2010)

Born in 1976 in Santander, Marc Soto is a prolific horror-story writer, publishing in magazines, anthologies, and online, alongside being a computer programmer. He mentions Stephen King as well as Julio Cortazar amongst the writers who have influenced him and sees fear as embedded in human nature, necessary, a primitive part of us all which civilization has papered over but which a small scratch easily exposes. This story is set in a village in Asturias. It is half past eleven at night and a fifteen-year-old called Raul is sitting on a bench in the central square waiting to meet his girlfriend, when he is approached by an old man walking with a stick who seems friendly. As they make small talk, it becomes apparent to the reader – but not to Raul – that the old man is a vampire.