Statistical Improbabilities
by Nancy Schumann
Nancy Schumann is a writer of dark fiction and academic texts in English and German and works have been published in both languages. Nancy’s particular academic interest are female vampires. Her fiction also often focusses on women, be they victim, villain or heroine.
For further information see www.bookswithbite.in
Other Publications
Podcasts
The House on the Cliff. Creepy – A Horror Podcast. Narrated by Megan McDuffee. July 2025.
Storytime in the Woods. Creepaway Camp Day 8. Creepy – A Horror Podcast. April 2025.
The Village. Tall Tale TV. Narrated by Christopher Herron. September 2024.
Fiction
Biscuits and Catatonia IN: Heredity. Nonbinary Review Journal. Zoetic Press 2024
The House on the Cliff. IN: 580 Split. Issue 25.Fever Dreams. 2022
Non-fiction
Sleeping with the Vampire. Gothic Studies, November 2021, vol. 23, No. 3: pp. 316-331.
Vampiric Emotion and Identity in Dracula and Interview with the Vampire. In: Marius-Mircea Crisan (ed); Dracula – An International Perspective. Palgrave Gothic. 2017
Take A Bite. London: CallioSoph. London. 2011.
* Credit to www.thefirstline.com for providing the first line of this story in their themed call.
More TTTV Stories by Nancy Schuman
As soon as Harriet entered the building, she headed to the seventh floor. The top of the building or at least right underneath the roof, which is about as top as it gets. It wasn’t tallest of buildings by any stretch of the imagination. And yet, tall enough. Absolutely nobody living or working above the second floor would dream of taking the stairs. Not unless they had to and even then they’d probably consider staying out until the lift was fixed if they had to get higher than the third, maybe fourth, floor. It all added up to the perfection that was hiding in plain sight.
Thoughts were strange thing, Harriet thought, as she climbed the stairs floor by floor with way too much time for her thoughts run wild. She should be concentrating on getting up these stairs quickly. But she could not make her steps any quicker. With nothing but the physical task of the lonely ascend invited musing on the convenience of just that loneliness. Harriet never encountered anybody on the stairs, which should be statistically impossible. It was precisely why she chose the stairs every time.
The tiny additional impossibility factor added to the power to her approach. Magic worked in peculiar ways and people’s choice to do or not do something affected the world around them. Many people individually choosing the lift created a vacuum on the staircase that magic was ready to fill given an opportunity. The fact that nobody else ever shared Harriet’s decision to walk, that all the things in reality that might have caused another person to be in the staircase at the same time as Harriet never managed to create a situation for Harriet to meet anybody on the stairs amplified her simple act of walking to have its own magical effect.
Maybe she slowed down because of this, to allow a more deliberate built-up while the seventh floor landing harboured more and more magical energy. Harriet wasn’t sure what was waiting for her. Well, she knew what was on the roof. Details beyond that were still out of her grasp.
She took each step deliberately, her breathing even, her muscles unfazed by the exercise. As she reached the sixth floor she could hear voice above her. She stopped and took a slow, deep breath, her eyes closed for a moment, before continuing. These were young voices. Teenagers maybe. Harriet heard their inexperience in the words.
In many ways, that was the scenario she had expected. Teenagers were always a likely cause of trouble. The four girls sitting on the top floor landing didn’t notice Harriet’s approach. She wasn’t anywhere near enough to cause an inconvenience to them yet. They probably had chosen the place for their ritual meet for the same reason Harriet always chose the stairs. They knew they’d remain undisturbed. Nobody else in the world had any business on the top floor landing. Nobody would observe them playing around with an incantation they didn’t know enough about to mess with.
Whether they had any idea that the statistical impossibility of this would amplify the magic was anybody’s guess. Probably not, Harriet thought. Her approach via the stairs had enough power to counter this amplifier on their side. Harriet took the final stair that brought her into view. The girls stopped chanting immediately, their faces pictures of the proverbial toddler caught with a hand in the cooky jar. Brilliant start, let’s not add to the problem, Harriet thought.
The four girls looked around 15 or 16 if Harriet were to guess. They shuffled aside, expecting her to pass through. Harriet being the one in a million person who would take the stairs to get to the seventh floor was, of course, the most logical assumption. Harriet smiled. They hadn’t seen what was on the roof yet. They couldn’t from where they were sitting.
“So, any of you lot know how we get to the roof?” Harriet asked.
The girls pointed to a door to Harriet’s right.
One of them mumbled: “There’s like that pull down ladder.”
“Excellent,” Harriet said, “well, chop chop. Come along then.”
To Harriet’s amusement the teenagers’ faces carried expressions that stated things like ‘who are you?’or ‘you’re not the boss of me’ but they still got up and shuffled towards the door they’d pointed to. The hatch in the ceiling was instantly obvious as they all stepped through the door.
“Give me a hand,” Harriet ordered and a couple of the girls proceeded to help her pull down first the hatch then the ladder that gave access to the roof.
“Whose brilliant idea was playing witches’ coven, then?” Harriet asked as she positioned the ladder. Silence.
“If anybody’s pointing or raising a hand behind me I can’t see that.”
This was greeted with an answer by three voices saying: “Caroline.”
Harriet turned to see said Caroline shrug her shoulders: “And you went straight for demon summoning, did you?”
Another shrug: “It’s not like it was likely to work.”
Harriet rolled her eyes and pointed to the ladder: “Let’s have a look at just how well that worked, shall we?”
She motioned for the four girls to go first and brought up the rear herself. She had never subscribed to the school of thought that the young ought to be sheltered from the consequences of their actions. Death within the first moments of entering the roof was rather unlikely, as, for one thing, she was seconds behind the girls and, for another, demons were as curious as any other creature. It would want to find out who had summoned it why, rather than go into kill mode right away.
So Harriet stuck her head out right behind the girls. The open-mouthed teenagers were almost more fascinating than the demon. At least she wouldn’t have to tell them to be quiet. One of the girls whose name Harriet hadn’t learned yet turned around to her and whispered: “That! That is an actual demon.”
Harriet wasn’t sure if that was supposed to be a question or a statement. She nodded anyway.
“It looks like …” started one of the girls.
“Alien.” Another one finished the sentence.
Harriet rolled her eyes yet again: “I would say you’re not old enough to watch that movie but given the current situation that’s a minor concern.”
The creature had noticed them and turned its black head towards the humans. Slimy teeth showed in its snarling mouth and Harriet had to admit comparisons to the alien queen from the movie were not unfounded.
The demon stretched its wings and rose on its hind legs. It took up a large proportion of the roof. It couldn’t remain unnoticed for long, though Harriet doubted normal humans would recognise the massive creature on a tall building for what it actually was. Still, she raised her arms and told the girls to repeat her words. They did as she asked and a quiet chant rose up. With it a semipermeable wall of mist clouded all of them as well as the creature hiding them from view.
Harriet had to hand it to these girls, they definitely had a knack for incantations.
“That’s enough,” she declared after a few moments.
“Just making sure we remain undisturbed.”she answered the questioning looks directed at her.
“Now aside from the fact that you didn’t think it would work, what was it you were trying to achieve?” Harriet asked.
“Doesn’t matter,” said one of the girls, “let’s get rid of this thing!”
“Not how this works, honey,” Harriet replied, “kind of need to know your planned end result to deal with,” she gesticulated towards the creature, “the accidental outcome.”
Her tone suggested she wouldn’t do anything before she had answers.
It was Caroline who reluctantly started to speak: “It was meant to bring a vampire into our lives.”
Harriet turned to the creature: “Well, that sure backfired. And the incantation?”
The girls mumbled but provided the words they’d used, enough for her to identify the problem. A lack of clarity in the instructions mixed with a powerful incantation, additional potency caused by their choice of venue and clear talent in the girls themselves. The result was eyeing them up with growing suspicion.
Its snarl rose to a growl, as the creature found itself restricted within the mist that surrounded them. Harriet knew the mist wouldn’t hold the creature. The creature did not know and was prone to lash out at them before it realised it could leave. The growl became a threatening howl. The creature stretched its wings further. It rose to its full height. If the girls had been angling for a vampire they had endowed the creature with the instincts of a bloodthirsty killer. Feeling even mildly threatened by their mist conjuring, it must be close to deciding to attack.
Harriet didn’t take her eyes off the creature: “Girls, the words from your incantation. I need you say them in reverse. Last word first, then all the way through. Like you did earlier, only backwards.”
They started slowly but one by one they all repeated the words. The not quite correct Latin was as cumbersome in reverse as it had been the right way around for the speakers. Harriet could tell the words carried no meaning for these girls. That’s how they got it wrong in the first place. With that thought Harriet stretched out her arms, directing the girls’ incantation and started to speak her own.
The creature roared, withering from the power of the words directed at it. Harriet could hear the girls’ voices faltering. She tried to make herself bigger, to stretch just a little further. She couldn’t stop chanting. The girls’ followed her lead. Their voices rose. Their confidence grew. The creature lashed out. It couldn’t quite reach them. A howl of pain rose from it. Little by little it lost its substance. It merged with the mist.
The girls ceased their chanting when they saw the creature disintegrate. Harriet smiled. That’s how she wanted things to go. She kept her chant up and turned around to face the girls. She reached behind herself into the thick mist. What remained of the creature flowed into Harriet. She bathed in the girls’ fascinated stares. Smiling, she brought her arms around and directed the vapours to the four teenagers. The mist cleared around Harriet as it entered each of the girls.
They looked around groggily, almost stumbling, and Harriet guided them down the ladder wordlessly. They walked as far as the seventh floor landing where Harriet had found them before their legs gave way. Harriet took what papers she found on the floor. It wasn’t likely their notes would mean anything to girls when they came to in a moment but inexplicable scribblings easily led to curiosity.
“History,” Harriet said out loud, “I suggest you study history together. Far more productive.”
Then she started her descend back to the ground-floor. She met nobody in the staircase the entire way down. She carried all the residual magic out of the building and with it all the girls’ memories of what they had been doing and what they had seen.
Harriet stepped out of the building, walked a little further, then turned around. The roof was empty. As it should be.
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