Fright Night

by John Skipp

  All, save one.

  “That, too, is what a vampire’s supposed to do. Isn’t it, Charley?” Jerry said.

  Peter turned to Charley, infinitely grateful to Dandrige for deflecting the embarrassment from himself. “You saw it. Are you convinced now that Mr. Dandrige is not a vampire?”

  Charley felt likely to explode. “It’s a TRICK! It must be! The water wasn’t blessed right, or it wasn’t blessed at all!”

  “Are you calling me a liar, young man?” he said huffily. “You have already embarrassed yourself once tonight. I see no reason to compound the error.”

  “Yes, Charley,” Dandrige said. “You’ve already caused your friends quite enough pain. You don’t want to cause them any more, now, do you?”

  Charley averted his eyes, miserable in his defeat. Sonofabitch has me locked up tight, he thought. They’ll never believe me now.

  “I guess not.”

  “Excellent.” Jerry smiled as the tension flowed out of the room. “I’m so glad that this is straightened out at last.” He gestured, arms wide, ushering them to the door.

  Billy turned to Peter. “I’ll get your coat,” he said, moving toward the antechamber.

  At the door, Jerry turned to Amy and Ed. Billy returned with Peter’s coat, helped him into it. Peter reached into his pocket for a smoke, feeling vastly relieved.

  “It’s been very nice meeting both of you,” Jerry said, “despite the peculiar circumstances. Please don’t be strangers.” He singled Amy out, his eyes flashing ever so slightly. “You’ll always be welcome.”

  Her eyes clouded momentarily, as the seed took root.

  (Say “thank you.”)

  “Thank you,” Amy replied, staring blankly.

  (“I’d like that”)

  “I’d like that, Mr. Dandrige . . .”

  “Please. Call me Jerry.”

  (Kiss, kiss.)

  “And you,” he said, turning to Eddie . . .

  Peter tamped his cigarette on the mirror inside his case. A few shreds of tobacco fell out onto the mirror. He leaned forward slightly to blow them away.

  And his blood froze in his veins.

  He couldn’t believe his eyes. There they were: Charley, looking sullen and impatient; Amy, staring dreamily into space . . .

  And Ed, heartily shaking hands with the thin air before him.

  Peter looked up. There was Dandrige, all effluent grace.

  He looked down. No Dandrige.

  Dandrige.

  No Dandrige.

  Peekaboo.

  Peter Vincent, the Great Vampire Killer, went pasty with shock. The case fumbled and fell to the floor with a crash and a tinkle of shattered glass. He knelt, heart pounding, and scooped up the wreckage.

  All eyes turned to him. Peter whisked the case off the floor and into his mack before anyone had a chance to see what it was.

  “Something wrong, Mr. Vincent?” Dandrige asked, conciliatory.

  “No, no, just my own clumsiness,” Peter stammered. He hoped that his shaking wasn’t obvious to all. “Amy, Ed, Charley, we’ve taken up quite enough time. Come along.”

  Jerry watched the old fart advance toward the door. He looked ashen, shaky. Palsied. He wondered if the man was having some sort of seizure. Peter turned to him, eyes wide, smiling stiffly.

  “Thank you once again, Mr. Dandrige. Mr. Cole.” Polite nods.

  “My pleasure. Please, come back anytime.”

  Peter Vincent nodded curtly and practically fell out the door in his haste to depart. The kids followed suit, Charley throwing one last baleful glance into the room. Billy shut the door quietly after him, smiling a tiny and humorless smile.

  “Bravo,” he said. “A faultless performance.”

  Jerry strode down the hall, stopped suddenly to scoop up something bright. Something shiny. He turned it over and over in his hand, then held it up for Billy to see. His comprehension grew with every refraction of light that played off the surface of the mirrored glass.

  “Perhaps not,” he mused aloud.

  Peter made it to his car in record time. It would have been unseemly to run, but there was nothing wrong with walking just as fast as his scrawny legs would carry him.

  Charley was completely confused. He acts like he’s gonna have a goddam coronary. “What’s wrong with you?” he asked.

  “Nothing. Leave me alone.” Peter was leaning against the car door, fumbling for his keys. His breath came in ragged clumps.

  “Then why are your hands shaking?”

  “They are not shaking. Now leave me alone, I say!” He dropped his keys, flustered.

  “You saw something back there, didn’t you?” Charley said accusingly. He pointed back to the house. Amy and Ed were just leaving the porch.

  Peter glared at him. “I saw nothing,” he said. “Nothing.” He put his key in the slot, engaging the lock, then threw the door open and slid behind the wheel.

  “You saw something,” Charley said, his voice drowned out by the gunning of the Rambler’s engine. “You saw something that convinced you that he’s a vampire, didn’t you?”

  “No!” Peter threw the car in gear, grinding the clutch.

  “DIDN’T YOU?”

  “PISS OFF!”

  The Great Peter Vincent stomped on the gas, tires squealing as he roared off into the night.

  “Shit!” Charley muttered, stomping his own foot on the ground. “Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit . . .”

  SIXTEEN

  Charley was very intense, Amy thought. Clearly, the meeting had failed in its primary purpose; he still believed that Jerry Dandrige was a vampire. He hadn’t stopped arguing with Evil Ed about it, in fact, for the last twenty minutes, ever since they’d started walking Amy home.

  She felt curiously out of it, listening to the two of them go back and forth. Her rational mind wanted to tag-team with Eddie, pin Charley’s shabby logic to the mat. But there were dark shapes moving in the shadowed recesses, where thought gave way to whispering hunches and quietly nagging fears. They had kicked the legs out from under her conviction.

  They had given her reason, however unreasonable, for doubt.

  What if he’s right? she found herself wondering. The thought refused to laugh itself away. Something strange had happened when Dandrige had looked at her, that much was for sure. Something strange.

  And not altogether unpleasant.

  They’d gone nearly a mile already, moving briskly toward the center of downtown Rancho Corvallis. The first of the five- and six-story buildings began to loom above them, sporadically crowding the sky. Green Street was desolate and anything but green: an endless stretch of gray on gray, punctuated by pools of light and darkness.

  There was a singularly dark alley on their left. Naturally, Evil Ed moved toward it. “Hey,” he called. “Let’s cut through here.”

  “No way, man! We want people and lights, the more the better!”

  “Yeah, well, you picked the right spot for it, Ace; nothing but people and lights, far as the eye can see!” He gestured broadly at the emptiness surrounding them.

  Charley bridled. “Well, it’s better than that!” Pointing at the alley. “That’s a goddam death trap!”

  “Aw, fuck you, Brewster! You’re certifiable, you know it? You’re one for the files!” He moved away from the others decisively now, heading toward the mouth of the alley. “I’m splitting.”

  “Ed, please.” Charley dropped his anger, and the only sound left was fear. “Just stick with us.”

  “Piss off. Amy, I’m sorry your boyfriend is such a jerk. I just can’t watch him walk around with a load in his pants anymore. It’s embarrassing.” Then he disappeared into the darkness.

  Throughout it all, Amy remained strangely unmoved. The shadowshapes were crowding more and more of her mindspace, taking her farther and farther away from Green Street, Charley and Ed, the endless argument. She didn’t resist when Charley took her by the arm and said, “Forget it. Dandrige wouldn’t want him anyway. Probably give
him blood poisoning.”

  It was the scream that brought her out of it.

  Every hair on her body jerked to attention; her every nerve ending shrieked in sympathetic discord. It was like catching a quick 110 volts from a faulty extension cord: the terror that sizzled through her was a living thing, crackling and burning and fusing what it touched.

  Her hands came up to lock on Charley’s shoulder in a death grip. Her eyes came up to lock with his. They shared a moment of mutual nightmare paralysis . . .

  . . . and then the scream came again, louder this time, and worse. Much worse. As if someone had reached down the dying throat, yanked it out, and hurled it bleeding through the air. Evil Ed, it’s Evil Ed, it’s Evil . . . her mind chanted in crazy singsong . . .

  . . . and then they were running straight into the mouth of the alley, feet slapping percussively against the pavement. Not thinking about how much noise they were making. Not thinking about how they might as well have been blowing a bugle.

  Not thinking about the death that they were racing toward.

  Roughly midway down the alley there was a row of trash cans. A few of them had been toppled over (and hadn’t she heard the sound of crashing metal, mixed in with the screams?). They lay on their sides, contents ripe and festering on the cobblestones.

  A dark shape lay behind them, crumpled against the base of the wall, not moving. Amy grabbed Charley by the arm again, jerked him to a halt, and pointed a quivering finger.

  “Oh, God,” he whispered.

  Slowly now, they moved toward the body. It lay there, huddled, a fetal ball of unmoving limbs. The head was tucked in and away from them. They could not see his face.

  “Oh, God, Eddie,” Charley moaned. “Oh, God, Eddie, no . . .”

  They knelt beside the body. It did not move. It did not breathe. Amy became aware of the ice water that was trickling into her bowels. She felt light-headed and queasy, close to shaking apart.

  This can’t be happening, this can’t be happening, droned a voice in her mind as Charley reached out tentatively to touch the still shoulders . . .

  . . . and the body whirled, howling, clawing out for his throat.

  Amy screamed and staggered backwards. Charley screamed and fell back on his ass. The body screamed and fell forward, on top of Charley, grappling for his jugular. “RAAAARRGH!” it howled. “I’VE GOT YOU NOW!”

  Then it rolled over on its side, laughing hysterically.

  “What?” Amy squeaked. She tried it again: “What?” It didn’t work any better. She had lost her voice; she had lost her bearings; she had very nearly lost her mind.

  But Charley was on his feet, yelling, “You asshole! You fucking asshole!” at the top of his lungs; and Evil Ed was still rolling around on the pavement, hooting and gasping for air. Then it all clicked together.

  She started to giggle.

  “IT’S NOT FUNNY!” Charley roared.

  “You . . . you shoulda seen your face!” Evil Ed barely managed to get out among the torrent of hee hee’s and ha ha’s. “It was . . . it was . . .” He couldn’t go on. He was laughing too hard.

  Amy couldn’t stop laughing, either. It was a hysterical reaction, she knew; it had less to do with humor than with the working off of terror. She had very nearly pissed herself at the time; now she was releasing it in hiccuping laughter, like hot coffee being forced up a percolator’s shaft.

  “You’ll get yours someday, Evil!” Charley snarled. Then he grabbed Amy roughly by the shoulder and led her, still giggling, back out to the street.

  “HOO HOO!” Evil Ed was in his glory. “HOO HOO! HOO HOO!” It was the funniest thing he’d ever seen, no doubt about it. He wanted to shout after them, soak the moment for a little more comic potential. He couldn’t. It was already too much.

  What a dope! his mind howled. What a sap! What a moron! His sides ached. Tears flowed from his eyes. It was like being tickled, painful and hysterical all at once. He found himself wanting to stop, but the image wouldn’t leave him: Charley’s face, eyes and mouth forming three tremendous O’s of terror, lips peeled back . . .

  Gradually the phantom fingers of mirth lightened up on his sides. He began to breathe normally again. “Hoo hoo,” he gasped, the last trickles of hilarity petering out of him. He pulled himself up onto hands and knees, turned toward the mouth of the alley.

  It was empty.

  “Oh, well,” he sighed philosophically. “Can’t win ’em all.” He brought his right coat sleeve up to wipe at his eyes.

  And then the cold hand touched him gently on the shoulder.

  “Glad to see you’re having fun,” said the voice from behind him. A warm voice. Melodious. Oozing sickly sweet mockery.

  Ed spun. All the humor squeezed out of him like ketchup from a plastic packet. His breath caught; his eyes stared upward.

  Into the face of Jerry Dandrige.

  “Hi, Eddie,” the vampire said. He wore a palsy-walsy grin. “Good ta see ya. How’s tricks?” He made a nudge-nudge motion with one elbow, leering.

  Evil Ed took one crab-walking step backward, right into the wall.

  “C’mon. Don’t be afraid,” the vampire implored him. “What are you afraid of? I mean, really. It’s not so bad.”

  Eddie collapsed, curled up into himself. It wasn’t funny. It wasn’t funny at all.

  “I know what it’s like for you,” Dandrige said. “To be different. I’ve been different for a long time.” He smiled. For the first time, he showed his teeth. They were long. Very long. “I know what it’s like to be misunderstood, to be ostracized, to be treated like the enemy.”

  The vampire stooped, his face coming very near. Evil Ed heard himself whimpering, and was unable to stop.

  “But it’s going to be different now. Wait and see. They won’t be able to beat up on you anymore. Guaranteed. They won’t be able to get away with it, ever again.”

  Very close now. Very close.

  Very long teeth. Very long.

  And very . . . very . . .

  Sharp.

  “Say good-bye now, Eddie,” the vampire crooned. “Say nighty-night. When you wake up, you’ll be in a far, far better place. I promise you.

  “You’ll love it.”

  It was almost the truth.

  But not quite.

  SEVENTEEN

  There was no scream, only a puny death rattle that barely made it to the mouth of the alley. Charley and Amy were more than two blocks away by then. The only sounds they heard were the staccato slapping of sneakers on cement, the harsh and weary rasping of their breath.

  It came to Charley as a rippling in the unconscious mind. It didn’t come as words or pictures; it drew no diagrams, offered no explanations.

  It did not state specifically that Evil Ed was dying.

  But at the moment that the lights flickered out behind Ed’s eyes, the ripples began. Like a rock thrown squarely into the middle of a motionless pond, the horror sent wave after circular wave out to stir up the backwaters of Charley’s mind. He had no way of knowing why dread washed up and overwhelmed him, made his armpits slicken and tingle, turned his spine into a shaft of dry ice. He didn’t know where it came from. He didn’t know what it meant.

  All he knew was that Green Street no longer seemed even remotely safe. Each corner, each doorway, each sunken recess was a new hiding place for the horror; every shadow was shifting and crawling with death.

  And not just any old death, either, his mind thought wildly. Not just ‘now I lay me down to sleep.’ This is living death that we’re talking about. This is rising up to suck the life out of your family, friends and neighbors.

  It wasn’t too hard to conjure up images, once he let himself go. It wasn’t hard to picture his sweet, bubble-headed mother, giggling in rapture as Jerry Dandrige put two holes in her throat and began to feed. Or to imagine her the next night, eyes bright and redly shining as she snacked on her bridge partner, the blood-stained Cheese Doodles forgotten.

  It was just as easy to
picture Amy in that situation. Or himself.

  Or Evil Ed . . .

  “Amy?” he began, turning to face her, not breaking his stride.

  “Me, too,” she said quietly. Her eyes told him everything he needed to know.

  They started to walk faster. Amy’s right hand snaked out impulsively, searching for his left. He didn’t reject it. The two hands clutched each other, the cold sweat from their palms intermingling.

  Charley was projecting ahead now, on a couple of different tangents. One part of his mind was plotting the quickest route to Amy’s. Another was plotting the trickiest route. He wasn’t at all sure that he wanted to lead Dandrige to her door. On the other hand, he didn’t know where else to go.

  He had roughly fifteen seconds to contemplate his options.

  And then every light on Green Street went out.

  It was like a massive black shroud had been draped over a ten-block radius. The streetlights were out in either direction, as far as the eye could see. So were the handful of illuminated windows they’d spotted along the way.

  They hadn’t shut off sequentially, click-click-clicking down to a vanishing point at the end of the street. They’d all gone off at once. Now only the light of the moon shone down on them.

  And the moonlight was cold.

  Amy gasped suddenly and yanked on his hand. Charley followed her gaze to the top of the building on their left. A fat ribbon of moonlight draped across its top two floors.

  A monstrous black shadow flitted across the moonlit brick.

  And from above them came the sound of massive, leathery wings in flight . . .

  “COME ON!” Charley screamed, breaking into a run. Amy was with him, taking off at the first shrill note of his voice. For the first twenty yards, their hands were still squeezed tightly together; then they broke from each other, their arms swinging freely as they pumped every ounce of speed and strength they had into getting away.

  They swung left on Rondo Hatten Road, instinctively heading for the late-night section of town. There was a rock club called Lizzard Gizzard’s, a country joint called Richie Wrangler’s Saloon, and a disco-dancing hot spot by the name of Club Radio. All three were practically within spitting distance . . . or would have been, if all the phlegm hadn’t dried up in Charley’s throat.