Fright Night

by John Skipp

  Romero Drive, Charley heard himself thinking, is the shit. There’ll be people. There’ll be light. He glanced briefly at Amy, sensed that she was thinking the same thing he was, and started to swing his gaze back around in front of him.

  That was when he spotted the cause of the blackout.

  The lights were out on Rondo Hatten as well, making it hard to see it completely. But there was a light pole on his immediate left, and it had a power box mounted on its side. The front of the box had been ripped off its hinges; the mangled mass of wires inside it dangled like limp strands of shredded intestine.

  Omigod, Charley silently screamed, thinking of the power involved with ripping a metal door off its hinges and then trashing a network of high-voltage wires. It was the same power that had plucked the nails from his window frame.

  It was the same power that threatened to rule him forever, if he didn’t get his act together fast.

  Dandrige didn’t know the city. He hadn’t been there long enough. That was the faith and the hope that Charley clung to as he steered to the right on Wickerman Road, Amy sticking with him. At the end of the block, Romero Drive was in full swing; the power loss hadn’t spread that far. He could almost smell the carousing humanity that partied and cruised the center-city strip, looking for action.

  They don’t know what action is, he mused.

  And that, of course, was when Jerry Dandrige materialized before them—midway down the block, in the center of the street.

  “Hey, you little lovebirds!” the vampire hollered, grinning endearingly. “Care to join me for a driiiiiink?”

  Charley and Amy screeched to a halt. They were less than ten feet into Wickerman; they recouped half that distance by dancing madly backward, then spun around and headed back down Rondo Hatten.

  “Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit!” Charley whined, in rhythm with his steps. Ahead of them, Usher Falls Road looked even more dank and foreboding than Green Street had. The words I don’t want to die there flickered across his mind like script from a hyperthyroid’s teleprompter screen.

  He reached out quickly with his left hand, catching Amy on the sleeve. She yipped like a puppy with a stepped-on tail, whipping her head around to stare at him crazily. “Back this way,” he hissed, spinning her around. She gave him a slow glance of mute incomprehension, then nodded and began to run with him.

  Wickerman was clear as they came back onto it. It remained so as they passed the place where Dandrige had stood. As he ran, Charley kept scanning the sky and the shadows to either side.

  No Dandrige. Two thirds of the way down the block, a sudden crinkling and a flurry of motion made their hearts pogo-stick into their throats; it was only a cat, bowling over some wadded-up newspaper. Very close now were the sounds of traffic and boisterous conversation. Still no Dandrige.

  We’re going to make it! Charley silently crowed. For the first time tonight, he allowed himself a smile. The corner was less than five yards away, the distance closing at a manic pace. On Romero, traffic was moving; he was close enough to make eye contact with the teenagers who leaned out of passenger windows, hooting and whistling at the hordes on the street. Cigarette smoke and exhaust fumes mingled with another scent—higher, sweeter—in his nostrils.

  “We made it!” Charley yelled, reaching out to place a hand on Amy’s shoulder. She grinned back at him through her teeth, puffing and panting, as they rounded the corner together . . .

  . . . and ran straight into a trio of tough guys in ragged jean jackets. The lead man, a blond greaser with a narrow hatchet face, had a cigarette dangling arrogantly from his lips. It spiraled crazily through the air as Charley slammed into him, hissed its life away in the gutter.

  “WATCH it, asshole!” the guy hollered. Charley made an appeasing gesture and slipped past him, Amy hot on his heels. The three toughs turned slowly to watch them pass, debating whether to fuck with them or not.

  They didn’t have a chance.

  Because when Charley and Amy turned around, Jerry Dandrige was there, two feet in front of them, leaning against the storefront window of H & R Block. He met their frozen expressions of terror with open amusement.

  “I hope that you two are enjoying yourselves,” he began. “Otherwise, this would be a total waste of time . . .”

  They didn’t wait to hear his closing boast; they jumped back, as if bee-stung, then whirled and ran the other way on Romero. Midway across the Wickerman intersection, they almost slammed into the toughs again. The sound of bellowing badasses was drowned out by the howls of terror between their ears.

  Club Radio was up at the corner ahead. The line out front was tiny, only three or four people; but a group of more than a dozen was closing in fast. Charley and Amy latched onto each other’s hands as they sprinted toward the door.

  Please, God, make them let us in, his mind cried out. Please, God, let us make it through the door. He threw a backward glance over his shoulder and saw that Dandrige was coming at a leisurely pace, assured of his kill. Amy had to drag him forward for a moment, while a ton of black despair settled on his shoulders like a stone.

  Then they were running again, Amy now leading the way. They pulled ahead of the oncoming crowd with ten feet to spare, just as the last one in front of them handed five bucks to the bouncer at the door. Charley realized that he didn’t have any money; he’d spent his last dollar on cheap plastic crosses. “Oh, Jesus . . .” he started to moan.

  Amy elbowed him smartly. He looked up, wincing, then grinned as she shoved a ten spot into his right hand. The bouncer looked up. Charley handed him the ten. The group of twelve closed in behind.

  “Thanks,” Charley said. He glanced over his shoulder again. Dandrige was close now, cutting ahead of the last three people in line. The vampire looked mildly irritated; the dark glee had been replaced with an even darker determination. Charley looked away, swallowing painfully, and followed Amy.

  They took four steps apiece.

  Then a massive hand clamped down on Charley’s shoulder, squeezing hard. It took everything he had to keep his bowels from letting loose. Only once before had he felt so sure of death: last night, at the window. It was no easier to handle the second time around.

  But when the voice boomed out from behind him, it was not the one he expected; and instead of telling him that there was no point in running, it said, “Just a second, little man. You got any I.D.?”

  The bouncer was a huge black man with a Fu Manchu mustache, a shaved head, and arms the size of ten-year-old maples under optimum growing conditions. At first glance, he looked fat. It wasn’t true. All six feet and more of him were packed with some serious muscle.

  Under ordinary circumstances, Charley would have turned milk-white if the bouncer so much as sneezed at him. These were not, however, ordinary circumstances. Compared to Dandrige, the black man came off like Garry Coleman playing Mr. T.

  And Dandrige was coming, slowly but surely. Charley could almost hear the vampire’s voice in his mind, saying, This is turning into a pain in the ass, Charley. You’re going to wish that you’d just given up. It wasn’t true, but it didn’t matter; the vampire’s face said it all.

  “You hear me?” the bouncer asked. His hand on Charley’s shoulder gave a vigorous shake.

  “Uh-bubba,” Charley said. He couldn’t articulate the standard underage rap: I’m eighteen, honest! I left my wallet at home, that’s all. I’ve got my license, my draft card . . . He couldn’t pronounce his own name.

  Dandrige was clearly visible now, less than three feet from the doorway. Somebody was giving him a hard time about cutting in line: a genuine fatso, whose worst threat would be that he’d sit on you. “Back of the line, jerk!” the man yelled, slapping one flabby hand down on Dandrige’s shoulder.

  Charley watched the vampire whirl. He more than half expected a sudden rain of blubber, like a whale being fed into the world’s largest blender. Instead, Fatso just staggered backward, as if he’d just stared into the mouth of hell . . . which, in a sense, h
e had.

  The whole thing took less than five seconds.

  And at the last possible moment, Charley made his decision.

  “RUN!” he hollered, dragging Amy by the hand. She’d been standing there mutely, as blank as Charley when it came to plotting the next move. Now she followed, as Charley broke free of the bouncer’s grip and ran, not into the club, but away from it.

  “Hey!” the bouncer shouted after them. “What about your money?”

  “FUCK IT!” Charley yelled back, completely sincere. He was rounding the corner, with Amy in tow. Behind him, Dandrige was just starting to force his way through the crowd.

  There was a sudden crashing of metal against metal. Charley spotted a guy in basic kitchen whites, dumping garbage into one of a dozen grimy cans. Charley flashed back to Evil Ed and the alley for a second.

  Less than five feet beyond, the kitchen door stood open. Charley and Amy blasted through the doorway before the dishwasher had time to piss or say howdy, much less see them coming.

  The cook was quicker. He looked up from his lettuce and started to shout, cleaver waving madly in the air. “Hey, you can’t go in there! Hey!”

  “Sorry!” Amy called back to him. Charley said nothing. They hit the door that led into the club, burst through it . . .

  . . . and were immediately assailed by the strobing lights, the throbbing beat and the gyrating clientele of Club Radio.

  The dance floor was huge, and utterly packed. Preppies and MTV-style trendies mixed and mingled, weaving in and out of one another to the groove of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” On the four huge video screens that surrounded the floor, rotting bodies clawed their way out of the dirt while Vincent Price did a voice-over that would’ve made Peter Vincent green with envy.

  For some reason, Charley was less than amused. The deeper he stepped into it, the more the whole thing smacked of nightmare surrealism. There was nothing entertaining about animate corpses at the moment; one was following him, and it wasn’t very much fun at all.

  To his left, on the far side of the room, a small plastic sign was obscured by the glare of the lights. He moved toward it anyway, riding a hunch, Amy firmly at his side.

  Sure as hell, there was a corridor trailing off behind the sign. Sure as hell, it led to the rest rooms and a bank of public phones. “All right!” Charley shouted, barely audible over the din of the speakers. “Come on!”

  By the phones it was better. He could hear himself think quite distinctly; and when Amy said his name out loud, it cut admirably through the noise.

  “What?” he asked, putting the nearest receiver to his ear. He dug a quarter out of his pocket and slipped it into the slot.

  “You were right about the holy water,” she said with great effort. “It was fake.”

  “I know.” He was punching a number in.

  “I just wish that I’d believed you.”

  “Me, too.” He turned to shrug, resigned, at her. “But I don’t blame you.”

  The phone rang. Amy bowed her head in what looked like shame. The phone rang again. Charley turned back to the phone, stared dumbly at the ridiculous plastic fern in its pot by the men’s-room door, the tacky stripes that adorned the wall.

  On the third ring, they answered.

  “Hello? Lieutenant Lennox, please,” he said. “It’s an emergency.”

  EIGHTEEN

  Peter Vincent sat in the complete darkness of his apartment, afraid to move. His door was barred, bolted and police-locked; pans of water were laid in front of every window; crosses of varying shapes and sizes were strewn within easy reach.

  All of this was scant comfort to the great vampire hunter, who sat in his favorite chair munching garlic cloves like breath mints and suffering a severe identity crisis.

  Hoping like hell that he would wake up to find this entire incident a simple psychotic episode.

  No such luck.

  The knock on the door seemed horribly loud, shattering the silence of the room along with the remnants of his tattered bravado. His heart paused a beat or two, as if considering the wisdom of continuing. He swallowed hard, fighting the urge to crawl under the bed and clap his hands over his ears. It took several seconds and a considerable amount of iron resolve for him to answer.

  “Who is it?”

  The voice came back muffled, furtive. “Mr. Vincent, open up. It’s me, Eddie.”

  Peter didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Didn’t think. His mind was a burning wagon wheel, rolling downhill.

  Outside the door, Evil Ed waited with mounting impatience. He pulled the collar of his flight jacket high around his throat, obscuring the twin holes so recently acquired. Better open the door soon, asshole, he thought. I’m starving. He grinned a horrible grin and tried to sound waiflike.

  “Pleeeease, Mr. Vincent. Let me in.”

  Peter Vincent clutched his cross as if it were a hotline to the 700 Club. There was something very strange in the boy’s voice, something chilling. It put a wormy feeling in his stomach. He sat up, tried to sound authoritative. It wasn’t easy.

  “Y-Yes, Edward. What is it?”

  “Please, Mr. Vincent, there’s a vampire out here. You gotta let me in.” Oh, that’s rich, he thought, thinking suddenly of the joke he’d wanted to pull on Amy earlier. It was the one where Tonto and the Lone Ranger were surrounded by thousands of screaming Indians. “Well, Tonto,” the Lone Ranger says . . .

  The door opened suddenly. Peter Vincent ushered him in with his eyes glued to the stairwell, in fear of sudden attack. Eddie hunkered in, shoulders bunched. Peter shut the door and locked it securely. When the last lock was fastened, he breathed a sigh of relief and turned to address his visitor.

  “Well, Eddie,” he said. “What are we going to do?”

  Eddie turned and smiled, putting on his best Tonto tone. “What do you mean, ‘we,’ white man?” he answered.

  The joke was entirely on Peter. He stared, slack-jawed and blanched as a mackerel, at the horror preening before him.

  “Like it? It’s a new fashion concept.” Ed took a few mincing steps forward, hands on hips. His jacket hung open now, revealing the withered flesh around the wounds, the blood-caked shirt. It was not a clean kill. His eyes twinkled, luminous bulging cataracts.

  Evil Ed advanced, still smiling. His teeth jutted like some nightmarish carnivorous gopher’s. They had grown quite long in a short time.

  Peter’s eyes widened. The part of his mind that wasn’t busy screaming marveled at this new tidbit of vampire lore.

  Evil Ed cocked his head, sensing Peter’s thoughts. “Quite the transformation, yes? Bet you didn’t know a person could change so quickly, did you? Yes, yes . . . I bet there’s lots of things you don’t know.” He closed the distance slowly, inexorably. “But you’re about to find out.”

  Peter whirled, heart hammering in his chest, and fumbled madly with the locks. The cross dangled from one hand, threatening as a rubber chicken, serving only to slow his escape.

  Eddie paused to savor the spectacle of the great vampire killer clawing at the door. It was too much. He burst with raucous laughter, spittle flying from the corners of his mouth. “OOOO! OOOO! Peter Vincent to the rescue! I’m DOOOOOOMED!” He flapped his wrists in a grotesque parody of terror. “Save me, Peter! Save me! OOOO! OOOO!”

  Peter felt the words bite deep. A lifetime of fantasy had coalesced into reality in his very room, and he was unworthy of it. He knew it. Evil Ed knew it.

  God knew it.

  “I used to admire you, you know,” Ed said contemptuously. “Of course, that was before I found out what a putz you really are.”

  Then he leapt, landing squarely on Peter Vincent’s back, hands raking across his face—trying to find his eyes, clear his throat for the kill. The aging actor screeched with terror and spun around, slamming Ed into the door. Eddie kicked and clawed gracelessly, grabbing Peter by the lapels and leaning over his shoulder. The vampire’s breath was fetid and chill as he made contact, teeth pressing hard agai
nst the soft flesh. An inhuman sound, somewhere between a growl and a whine, filled Peter’s ear. He panicked.

  And, quite involuntarily, pressed the cross hard into Eddie’s face.

  It was a reflex action. Peter’d done it dozens of times, in dozens of films. It was always followed by a special-effects sequence, a morass of technicians, tubes and latex appliances.

  But the acrid smell that followed was all too real. Smoke curled around the cross, accompanied by the hiss and sputter of burning meat. Eddie screamed like a baby on a bayonet and fell to the floor, clutching his forehead. The voice coming through his hands was piteous. “What have you DONE to me?” it cried, and a crazy wave of remorse swept through Peter.

  Suddenly, the crying stopped. Evil Ed looked up, fixing Peter with an accusatory stare. Lightly, he traced the wound with his fingertips. And realized, with growing horror, the shape of the brand.

  The shape of a cross.

  “No . . .” he whimpered. “Noooo . . .” He jumped up and ran to the mirror, afraid of what he’d see.

  Seeing nothing. No reflection.

  “You bastard,” he hissed. “I’ll kill you . . .” He turned, menacingly.

  Peter thrust the cross forward in the time-honored style. “Back,” he said.

  Eddie stopped dead in his tracks. He winced, unable to face the cross directly. “Shit,” he muttered. The sight of it, even in the darkness of the room, filled him with a bottomless nausea. He tried to sneak around it, but Peter was quickly falling into full vampire-hunting mode.

  “Back, cursed hellspawn!” the actor cried, straight-arming the cross as he advanced. “Back, I say!”

  Eddie would have laughed if it didn’t hurt so goddam much. It was ludicrous. This guy was a clown, Fright Night incarnate.

  He retreated nonetheless.