Deedrick Ward: The First Vampire

Everybody wants to know who came first. If I had a nickel for every time I had to answer that question I'd be so rich I could synthesize my own blood and I wouldn't have to bite anymore pretty necks.  Just once I wish someone would ask about the second vampire.
         
Deedrick Ward, surprisingly enough, was the first.  People ask me all the time, “what about Count Dracula,” the count is old, alright, but he was not the first.  You have to go way back, even farther than the Count, to get to the time of Deedrick Ward.  Deedrick was a king and his castle flew the colors of a country long forgotten to the unwavering grip of time.  His wife, the lovely, Julian Ward, never once was stricken with illness.  This didn't go unnoticed when the kingdom came under the crushing weight of a murderous plague, and so it seemed that everyone except the queen was to bear this great burden.  From within the souls of the stricken many, a chattering could be heard that the queen's blood may hold the cure.
         
It wasn't long before the people, mostly walking vials of disease or cultures for the devil's work, came knocking down the door to the queens chamber.  They took her down to the square and dragged the weakened king out to watch, helplessly.  They hung her by her feet and poked two holes in her neck.  Drop by life-stealing drop, her blood filled cups and containers for all.  The king watched from behind restraints while someone licked the last dribble of blood from his wife's colorless, impaled body.
         
The kingdom celebrated as they sipped the coppery fluid; no doubt tomorrow they'd be healthy again.  I was among those drinking and saw an especially exuberant woman with glossy red lips give the sick king a kiss. The king spat out the taste of his late wife's blood. He vowed to return and do to others as they did to his wife.  His broken heart shattered and he died that very night. 
         
People were still dying and so was the hope that the queens blood was a magical cure. I shouldered the burden to bury King Deedrick in the old cemetery up on the hill.  With only a lamp to see by, I slid the coffin into the grave and put a few shovels of dirt on it. 

Thats when I heard the knocking noise.  At first I thought it was just me, but the noise persisted.  It was strange, but I wasn't too frightened by this and I had to investigate, so I jumped in and opened the coffin.  Deedrick lay as he should have been and I didn't see anything unusual, however, as I went to put the lid back on, Deedrick's eyes shot open.  That startled me so much that I just froze.  My brief hesitation ended my life; he grabbed me around my neck and bit.

I felt a deathly chill when his teeth sank deep into my carotid artery and after he drank my blood I passed out.  When I woke up I lay deep within my own grave, and with inhuman strength clawed my way out.  It didn't take me long to notice how different I felt. A maddening urge overcame me for the taste of blood and my teeth had become pointed and sharp.  That night Deedrick and I converted the entire village, relieving them of one sickness and giving them another.  That is how the first vampire came to be.