::A Geek in Korea::

This is a tale of woe and sorrow,

Weep all ye who hear,

for the Vampyr vacuum will devour your very soul.

***

A couple with a desire for change moved into a filthy domicile in a crowded town much to their distaste. Fearing a disease of unknown origin from the dirt and grime that infested the floors of their new shack, they sought out a solution at a local bazaar for medicinal cures, tinctures, and oils to purge the evil from their house.

They happened upon a small shop watched over by a caretaker in a particular sort of dress. She had the marks of a witch, or possibly an alchemist. She watched the couple with great interest as the couple moved through the crowd, repulsed at the at the great throngs of people that had packed the bazaar. Seeking shelter from the crowd, or possibly drawn by her will, they ended up in front of her while she took stock of her products.

The young couple short on money but determined, needed some method to purge the filth from their house. They had no knowledge of the cleaning arts, but knew that this woman was filled with great power and strength. They spoke to the shop keeper if anything she knew of could assist them in removing the mark of dirt that had made the process of purging the filth of their own home so tiresome.

“Ahh, you see an aide to rid you of this grime of which you speak? Had you considered a mechanical device of any kind?” The witch then spun her arms around and revealed that the stock she was tending was in fact a sort of machine used for expelling unwanted filth from houses.

The young couple was surprised by such a revelation. There were all manner of machines of different shapes and sizes, with hoses, wheels, cords, and spheres of all different configurations for the eye to see. None of them seemed large and powerful enough to cleanse their own home to the degree they required.

“All of these devices will do what you seek to a degree, but there is one in particular that I want you to see. Come this way, while I bring it out for you.”

The young couple followed the shop keeper back into the nest of machines. The store keeper grinned silently to herself as she drew in her prey. Few had entered her den without having a great deal of their savings cleaned off them, as it were. The couple smiled and held hands as they walked deeper into the shop. Little did they know that they were about to find far more than what they were seeking.

The storekeeper took the young couple to a small space where a tiny yellow machine sat waiting. The machine had a long hose and arm like attachment, with a door opened on it side revealing other various devices that looked to be shaped by a craftsman of great skill. The couple was intrigued by the small device. “Surely, this is not the machine that you wish to show us. It is so tiny. Our house is filled with the filth and grime of a 1000 years of habitation. There is no end to it’s disgusting smell and vile spread. No small yellow device could possibly exorcise the evil that is in our house.”

The shopkeeper looked quite perplexed. “Exorcise? Oh no, this machine would never do that. It would, however, remove any unsightly blemish your home might have hidden in any crack or corner. Lesser creatures cower in fear when it is brought to any abode, for no arachnid or rodent could ever escape it’s pull. This machine is not for exorcism. It is for…a different purpose…”

“Let us see a demonstration of this device,” the wife said boldly.

“Yes, if it can do all that you say, we need to be shown it’s power,” The man said, sounding annoyed and full of disbelief.

“I am but a humble shopkeeper, and I do not wish to show you all the functions of this machine. I can however give you some glimse of it’s power. I shall now turn it to it’s lowest setting. Watch as I easily pull up the very dust from beneath our feet.”

The shopkeeper pushed a button on the device with her feet, holding the arm attachment in to hands, and proceeded to draw in remnants of rat droppings and discarded food that had littered the floor of the room she had brought the couple. The machine whined with a low unsettling howl.

The stop keeper then indicated that the dirt and detritus of food was being collected in a small bag in the center of the machine. “The machine holds the waste for you in a special place. The inside of this machine is far, far larger than it appears. You can clean one thousand rooms filled to the very top with dirt before you would ever be required to remove the bag that holds the waste. It has been enchanted by dark magics to hold anything you desire in it’s bowels.”

“Yes, yes, that is all well and good,” said the wife, “but what of the greater powers this machine holds. What about the second setting?”

The shopkeeper stared deeply into the wife’s eyes, “Are you sure that you would like to see machine can do at the next level?”

“Oh, of course we want to see what it can do,” the husband answered impatiently. “We must clean the house quickly to remove any and all trace of the previous inhabitants. They were so filthy and disgusting that it drove us to this bazaar to find a solution to the mess we have now own. Show us what it can do.”

The shopkeeper then twisted a dial and removed the hose attachment. The machine sat with an empty hole in it’s side, like a gaping mouth of a lion about to devour its prey. The shopkeeper then turned on the machine and placed her hand over the hole. She winced in discomfort as she lifted the machine off the ground. The power of the suction was so great that it could support the weight of the machine when given a fleshy surface to attach.

“This is a nice parlor trick, but will it help us? We must remove the filth from our abode,” the woman asked.

The shopkeeper turned off the machine which had started to make a disgusting sucking sound as it hung suspended on her hand. With the power off, the machine lost it’s grip on the woman’s skin and dropped to the floor silent once again. She revealed her hand to the couple, which was darkly bruised and purple.

“Yes, it will help you purge the grime of which you speak. Be happy that I am willing to go this far to explain it’s power. If you ever need to use the machine at this second level, think of this hand as a warning. This machine, you see, has a taste for flesh now.”

“A machine that hungers? How absurd. If you want to convince us that this machine is worthy of purchase, please show us the next setting as well,” the husband said, forcefully.

“NEVER!” The shopkeeper spat, “This ground, it is not properly consecrated to contain such force. The results would be disastrous.”

“If you shall not show us the next level of power, let us see for ourselves, for we must rid the vermin in our home immediately!” the woman shouted.

The man pushed the shop keeper to the ground. The shopkeeper fell, sprawling, and hit her head on the shelf that contained dozens of other machines.  She fell with a a thud and a crack, eyes opened but lifeless.The other machines tumbled down on top of her as she lay motionless.

The wife manipulated the dial and attached the arm and hose to the device once again. She repositioned the arm, aiming it at the shop keeper’s exposed feet. The husband turned the machine on and the couple watched in fascination as the flesh of the shop keeper’s foot was slowly devoured by the machine’s suction. First the hair, then the flesh, the muscle and finally the bones themselves were torn off the corpse of the shop keeper and consumed by the machine. The body slid out from under the pile of machine slowly, drawn into the machine by its awesome power.

The device’s sound approached a hurricane like intensity as it consumed the woman. There was no blood left as a witness to the shopkeeper’s existence. There was no evidence. She had been devoured entirely. There was nothing left but the hellish whirl of the machine inside the device.

The couple turned off the device and looked at each other, happily.

The woman grinned, “This machine will be quite useful for eliminating all the waste left behind by the last owners. The cleaning shall only occupy a small part of the dark magic bag contained inside this device. Shall we get back to the house and begin to remove the grime? May I suggest we start with the former owners themselves, then move on to their children and pets?”

“In time,” the man answered, staring down at the machine.”I’ve just noticed. This machine has one more higher setting. Let us clean out this filthy bazaar first before we return home. It is ever so unsightly with the pestilent crowds and the unwashed masses, don’t you agree?”

“Yes, those people making the entire world dirty and disgusting. We must cleanse the world with this device. Shall we begin my love?”

“Yes, my love. We shall. We will remove the grime from the entire world.”

The couple turned the device to the next setting and set to work making the world absolutely spotless.