“Sodomites?”
“They lay together as a man lays with a woman.”
Haskill gagged. It made sense, though. He’d seen the way they looked at each other. The way they acted. It had bothered him for a long time now, but Sodomites? He never would have imagined. He wouldn’t want to imagine. Sodomites. In his own town!
“They’re the reason the plague has come.”
Haskill knew what he had to do.
***
Josiah Washington waited for Justus Coop for nearly an half an hour before falling into a fitful doze. Sometime later, the sound of a footstep on the stairs brought him awake.
“Justus?”
No reply.
Washington stayed put for a moment, and then got up and went to the door.
“Justus?”
He opened it.
Pastor Hanskill was there, a gun in his hand. His eyes were wide and moist, and his mouth was twisted in a sneer of hatred. "Sodomite!"
"Pastor?" Washington blurted, startled.
Hanskill fired.
***
“I want you to go home and lock your doors,” Coop said. “I’ll back in a bit. I have to talk to Doc Washington.”
Barney nodded. The man was now a pile of embers.
“Go!”
When Barney was gone, Justus looked again at the ash before him. When he was a boy, his grandfather told him stories of ghosts and ghouls, and, thinking back, he was sure he remembered something about a monster that burned up in the sunlight.
He chuckled. Monster?
Better get back to Doc’s. They could talk this thing over and see what was going on.
Coop walked back to Washington’s house. On the way, he encountered worried townspeople at their doors and on their porches. When he passed, they hurled questions at him.
“Just stay inside.”
At Washington’s, Coop paused for a moment and looked back toward Main Street. He didn’t believe in monsters, but something strange was definitely going on.
Shaking his head, Coop started up the walk, and was almost to the bottom step when the door flew open and Pastor Hanskill emerged.
Coop's heart stopped.
"SODOMITE!" he wailed .
In an instant, Coop saw that the old holy man had a gun, and that he was raising it.
As fast as lightning, Coop drew his own gun and fired from the hip in one smooth, easy motion. One. Two. Three times.
The first shot took Pastor Hanskill in the stomach, driving him back. The second whizzed past him, slamming into the doorframe behind him, sending slivers of wood flying into the vestibule. The third ripped out his throat and knocked him down.
For a long moment afterward, Coop stood rooted in place, shock coursing through his veins.
Then it hit him.
Josiah.
Heart pounding, Coop took the stairs two at a time, tripped on Pastor Hanskill’s body, and stumbled into the vestibule, dimly lit by the light of a hurricane lamp.
“Josiah!”
His voice, shakier than he’d ever heard it, reverberated through the house, bouncing off the floral walls and low ceiling.
“JOSIAH!”
Coop bounded heedlessly into the parlors, but he wasn’t there. He wasn’t in the kitchen either.
Upstairs. He had to be upstairs.
Coop took the dark backstairs, and, in the shadow washed hall, saw something on the floor. A lump.
Please, God, not Josiah.
Like a man in a nightmare, Coop found himself drawn magnetically to the form on the floor.
It was Josiah. His eyes were closed. An angry red wound on his shoulder marked the spot where that bastard Hanskill had shot him.
“Josiah?” It was a murmur more than a question. Coop dropped to his knees and tentatively touched the strong, angular jaw, the jaw that he had loved so much.
Josiah opened his eyes.
Coop burst into tears. “Josiah...”
Washington took a deep, shuddery breath.
“Are you okay?”
Josiah looked at his shoulder. “Yes. I should be fine. Help me to bed.”
Coop helped Josiah into the bedroom. There, he removed his shirt, and hissed at the angry pink-rimmed wound.
“I need my bag from the parlor,” Washington said.
Coop nodded and rushed downstairs. The bag was sitting on a frail end table by the window. Coop brought it back.
Washington removed a piece of gauze from the bag, soaked it in alcohol, and cleaned the wound.
“Pastor Hanskill did this.”
“I know. I killed him.”
Washington looked up. “What happened out there?”
Coop told him as much as he could, and as he did, Washington’s face darkened.
“It sounds like you’re describing a vampire.”
“A what?”
“Vampire. A dead body come back to life to suck blood. They can’t go out in the sun. It sets them on fire.”
Coop swallowed. “That’s nonsense though.”
“Can you explain what you saw?”
No. He couldn’t.
“Vampirism would be consistent with what we know about the outbreak. The weakness, the nightmares.”
“You don’t really think...”
“I might.”
-6-
Two hours later, Sheriff Justus Cooper ordered all able-bodied men to the town meeting hall. When it was all said and done, only a dozen people showed up. Martin Smith, the town librarian; Johnathan Sloan, the manager of John Murphy’s saloon; Barney Parker; others.
Coop, with Washington by his side, addressed the assembled. They were afraid and unruly, which Coop could understand.
“I know it might sound preposterous, but Doc Washington believes a vampire may be at work in town.”
“A vampire?” Sloan called out. “Try a hundred of them! I saw ‘em with my own two eyes.”
The others nodded and murmured their agreement, shocking Coop.
“Doc purposes we go dig up John Murphy and see.”
“Let’s go!”
“Yeah!”
***
At the cemetery, Coop and Sloan did most of the dirty work; inside of an hour, they dragged John Murphy’s coffin from the ground and opened it.
It was empty.
Coop was stunned.
“You were right,” he told Doc Washington.
Washington smiled. “I’m always right.”
“Now we know!” Adrian Brody, a rail man, said. “We gotta find him and stake him!”
“It won’t do us any good,” Washington said. “We have to find the first vampire, the one who bit John Murphy.”
“And who’s that?” Dean Caufelt asked.
Washington looked across the town, at the hazy hills beyond.
At the Carter property.
“The German?” Coop asked.
Washington nodded. “It has to be. None of this happened until he came around. You said yourself that Mr. Blutsauger was...”
“Blutsauger?” Martin Smith asked.
“He’s the German’s manservant,” Coop said.
“Sheriff,” Smith said, “blutsauger is German for blood-sucker.”
It was definitely the German, they decided.
***
Less than an hour later, Coop rode out of town alone. In ten minutes, Washington and the other men would follow. At the road leading up to the Carter place, they’d pause and wait half an hour. If he wasn’t back by then, they were to come the rest of the way.
Coop, pushing Daisy as hard as he could, passed the turn off and followed the road for another two miles, until the land flattened out. There, he left the road and galloped across the salt flats for another mile, following an arroyo for half the distance, before coming to the jagged mouth of a lush box canyon some two miles deep. There, he jumped off the horse, hitched her to a dead tree, and rubbed her flank.
“You be good,” he said. “I’ll come back and get you.”
“I’ll be back,” he promised. To himself or the horse, he didn’t know.
Taking only a bag crammed with wooden stakes and a mallet, and his rifle, Coop set off, climbing the steep hillside as quickly as he dared. It was already nearing four ‘o’clock. Soon, the sun would set.
Ten minutes later, Coop had surmounted the summit, and watched the house from the safety of another large boulder. He wished he had field glasses. Not that it would matter. He had to get across the open area, watcher or not.
Calling upon his military training, Coop crept/crawled/rushed from one hiding spot to another, keeping low and never stopping. After what seemed an eternity, he reached the shed behind the house. From here, he could clearly see that the broken windows in the back were empty. Next to the back door, there was a hatch that led into a cellar, where the previous owner had stored their canned goods.
Making sure once more than Blutsauger wasn’t aiming at him from a window, Coop crossed the remainder of the yard and reached the hatch unscathed. He tested it, found it was open, and went in.
The basement was cool and dark and smelt of limestone and mold. Coop walked carefully down the stone steps, his rifle out in front of him, and emerged in the basement proper, a large square room with a dirt floor and stone walls.
Ahead, resting in the dirt, was a crate. On top of it, a form.
Coop approached carefully, nudged it with the barrel of his gun.
It was Blutsauger. His throat had been cut. Looking down at the box, Coop saw a hole in it, ringed with blood.
Coop pushed Blutsauger off and opened the lid.
He gasped.
The creature before him was a study in the grotesque. Its flesh was milky white and its face long and jagged. Its ears were pointed and its nose hooked over its upper lip. Its mouth, which was open and caked with blood, bore two rows of crooked, wickedly sharp fangs.
The thing must have killed Blutsauger and put his slashed neck over the hole in its coffin so it could feast even as it slept.
Coop took a deep breath. He sat aside the rifle and pulled out a stake and the mallet.
Barnes opened his eyes.
Coop jumped back. The creature’s orbs, yellow and black, bore into him.
“The thirst...the thirst...”
Its lips didn’t move as it spoke.
“Kill me...kill me...”
***
After climbing into his coffin ahead of the sun, Barnes laid awake in agony, his stomach clenching and throbbing, as if a thousand tiny clawed hands were trying to escape.
His stomach. His throat. His lips. Fire burned deep within him, and he was being consumed.
When he could stand it no longer, he called his trusted servant to his side and hypnotized him into putting a hole in the crate, cutting his throat, and lying on top of it.
Now, the blood was all gone and sundown was so far away.
***
“Kill me...”
Coop placed the stake over the beast’s heart.
“...please...”
Coop raised the hammer.
“..ease..”
Brought the hammer down.
-7-
The others arrived just as Coop stepped out of the house.
“Is it done?” Sloan called.
“It’s done,” Coop said.
“Then the others...”
Coop shook his head. “Burn the town.”
Washington, hitherto silent, started. “What?”
Coop swallowed and nodded. “Burn it. It’s evil now.”
***
They started by the train station and worked their way east, lighting as many buildings as they could. By dusk, half the town was engulfed.
On their way out, they burned the Carter house, too.
-8-
Seven months later, Justus Coop put his hand on Josiah Washington’s shoulder and said, “I think we can make a life here.”
The town of Pico Mundo, California, stretched out before them. It was a lot like Alura, but much, much smaller.
“So do I, sheriff,” Washington said.
THE END
THE FACE ON THE WALL by Jimmy Bernard
1.
Tommy Miller had a face on his wall. He didn’t notice it right away and it certainly hadn’t always been there. He was standing in the bathroom of his cheap apartment one morning, looking at himself in the mirror. His hairline was receding, nothing he could do about it. The barber had given him a professional looking haircut, which wasn’t too bad actually, but once his hair grew out a bit, his hairline started to come into focus more. So every day Tommy looked at himself in the mirror, hand going through his hair looking for bald spots, while wondering whether to get unaffordable implants or just face the harsh reality of looming baldness.
He sighed and turned off the light. His silhouette looked at the ground while he left the small bathroom and walked to the bedroom. He closed the door and glanced at the wall, where the face had appeared. His breath caught in his throat while he let out a muttered “fuck.” His legs trembled and Tommy had to grab the door not to fall down. He felt his heart beating faster than ever before and for a split moment he realized he was not a fighter. He was no action hero who grabbed the first thing he could and went to town. No, Tommy was just Tommy and he was lucky he didn’t piss his pants.
He reached for the door handle and pulled it open, crawling out onto the cheap linoleum floor of the living room. A part of him wanted to cry for help, but he didn’t. He just crawled and hid behind the TV. He sat there, holding his knees and trying not to cry, when he realized this was the end for him. This was the kind of stuff you read about in books or saw in movies. A helpless guy who got targeted by a monster and could do nothing but pray for a swift ending. Tommy let out a soft laugh, more of a whimper. His time was up and he knew it.
Only nothing happened.
An hour passed before Tommy found the strength to stand on his legs. The initial shock had faded and now he was starting to wonder whether he had actually seen a face, or if his mind had played a trick on him. His apartment wasn’t big and he could see the bedroom door from where he was standing. It was open and a beam of grey daylight fell through. He looked at it, expecting a shadow to cross through it, but nothing did.
He glanced at his watch and saw he was running late. He had yet another hopeless job interview in about thirty minutes and he desperately needed his coat which was on his bedroom chair. Tommy shook his head and bit his lip.
“Come on, just go get it,” he said. He took a short step forward and clenched his fists, ready to swing at whatever came at him. It was a short walk from the living room to the bedroom, but to Tommy it felt as if he was walking towards the electric chair, ready to get fried. Sweat blurred his vision and a thought far back in his head told him he should have put on some deodorant.
Tommy reached the door and peeked inside. He had expected the face to be gone, but it wasn’t. It hadn’t been a hallucination or a shadow from a bird flying by.
There was a face in the middle of his wall.
He felt a cold drop of sweat roll down his back. His mouth was open and he was moaning. He went inside and hugged the opposite wall, ready to run for the hills at the first sign of movement. The face was ugly. It had rough red skin, as if the owner had done nothing but work on a field for his entire life. There were deep wrinkles around the eyes and forehead. The lips were turned down, which gave it a malicious, disapproving look. The eyes were open and followed Tommy wherever he went, like the paintings in those old Scooby-Doo cartoons which always hid a villain behind them.
“What the-?” Tommy said.
“What are you?”
The face didn’t respond at all, as if it hadn’t heard his question. Tommy stepped closer. He had a guitar next to the door from back when he had dreams of becoming rich and famous. He grabbed and reached out with it, until the head of the guitar touched the face. It felt soft with a hard texture underneath, just like a real face. Tommy jabbed it harder, but still no response came. It just stared at him with that sinister look.
Tommy put the guitar down and stepped closer. He held out his hand, still waiting for that moment where the face would jump and devour him whole. Twice he stepped back, chickening out at the last minute. But eventually he pushed himself and placed his hand on the forehead. The touch of skin underneath his hand gave him shivers. It was too unnatural, too unreal. There was a face in his wall, an actual human face.
“What are you?” Tommy said, without getting a response.
2.
He had cancelled the job interview, he wasn’t getting it anyway. It was an HR position in this big international company. Tommy hadn’t even hoped for this one. He’d just applied because that’s what people expected from him. Besides, a recently graduated guy with a receding hairline and a lot of broken dreams wasn’t fit to get a job that good anyway.
The people on the phone didn’t seem to care about his cancellation. They didn’t even ask him if he wanted to reschedule the meeting. They just thanked him for the heads-up and ended the call. After that he went back into his bedroom, where the face was still following him around. Tommy sat down and looked at it, while trying to figure out what the hell was going on. So far he had come up with a few answers. Either he was going insane or he was the victim of a complicated prank. He decided to go for the second answer.
Tommy went into the kitchen, grabbed a knife and went back into the bedroom.
“Alright, if this is a prank then good job! You got me! But now it’s time to end it,” he said.
The face didn’t respond.
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