Fright Night

by John Skipp

  . . . and then somebody grabbed her by the arm, and she screamed a little more until she realized that it was Charley, it was Charley, and his mouth was moving but she couldn’t understand a word that he was saying, she couldn’t hear him, she was too busy screaming and screaming and . . .

  . . . then they were running, everybody was running, the world had become a shrieking madhouse of pandemonious motion, wave upon wave of terrified flesh that pressed against her from behind, pressed against Charley, pushed them forward and into the night . . .

  Charley heard a split-second whistling by his temple. Then he felt the blow, and the world went electric with white blinding pain. He felt his hand fall free of Amy’s arm, felt himself begin to tumble.

  The first wave of fleeing people plowed into him from behind. He dropped like a stone, and they began to pile up on top of him. When his senses returned, he noticed the pair of enormous tits that were jammed against the back of his head. They failed to cheer him up.

  “OUCH!” he yelled. “GET THE FUCK OFFA ME! OW!” The weight was crushing; worse yet, it was immobilizing. Above him, the pile was beginning to tip over, to grow in size, to reach dangerous proportions. Charley got a vivid flash of what being trampled to death might be like. He started to crawl painfully toward the curb.

  The woman fell off his back and onto his legs. He winced and let out a thin screech of anguish. His gaze swept out to the street before him.

  The black Jeep was there. Its back door was closing. Jerry Dandrige stood beside it, grinning warmly at him. Through the rear window, the back of Amy’s head was clearly visible.

  So was the face of Evil Ed, whose name was no longer a joke. It leered at him as Dandrige hopped into the passenger seat, and the Jeep kicked into rubber-burning motion.

  “NO!” Charley screamed, wrenching himself free at last. He staggered to his feet and began to run after them; but the car was already wheeling around the corner, and he was too late, too late . . .

  TWENTY

  Peter Vincent was throwing things into a battered leather suitcase. His choices were based on nine parts panic, one part practicality. Shirts, socks, pants and underwear were high on the list of priorities, which made sense. On the other hand, one pair of pants, five shirts, five socks and eight pair of underwear, only some of which matched, did not.

  Memorabilia kept making its way in and out of the suitcase. Desk-sized photo frames, housing shots of Peter Vincent with everyone from Roddy McDowall to Ingrid Pitt to a late-model, strained and staring Bela Lugosi; his shattered cigarette-case mirror, a stiletto that shot out a ten-inch aluminum cross (from Hickies From Hell, the teenage vampire classic), a trick crucifix/spritzer that used holy water instead of seltzer. He even tried to tuck framed movie posters in, but gave up when Blood Castle slipped out of his fingers, spraying shards of glass all over the floor.

  The room was a disaster area. Evil Ed’s visit had been only the beginning; most of the damage had been done by Vincent himself. Drawers were thrown open and tossed to the floor; the things still hanging on the walls were wildly askew. A hurricane called Hysteria had blown through the room, and nothing therein would ever be the same again.

  I gotta get outta here, I gotta get outta here, his thoughts prattled over and over. It was the mantra of a man in mortal terror. A psalm on self-preservation. A communion with cowardice. I gotta get outta here. The only thought in his head.

  When the knocking at the door began, he let out a little shriek and dropped everything he was clutching.

  “MR. VINCENT!” screamed the voice from the hall. “OPEN THE GODDAM DOOR!” The pounding continued, making the fillings in Peter’s teeth rattle.

  He thought he recognized the voice, but it was hard to tell: he’d never heard such panic. All the same, he edged toward it tentatively.

  “Who is it?” he trilled, voice thin and quavering.

  “CHARLEY BREWSTER, GOD DAMN IT! LET ME IN!” The pounding stopped, and there was the muted thump of Charley, leaning heavily against the door. Peter put his hand on the knob, started to turn it, then thought better of the idea.

  “What do you want?” he asked. “I’m very busy.”

  “HE HAS AMY!” Charley howled, and the pain in that voice stabbed into Peter’s gut like a rabies vaccination. “HE HAS AMY, AND WE’VE GOT TO SAVE HER, AND I NEED YOUR HELP, AND . . . OH, GOD DAMN IT, JUST OPEN THE DOOR!”

  Peter could hear, from the other side, that Charley was starting to cry. He leaned his back to the door and took a deep, hitching breath that made his chest flare up for one agonized second. The words heart attack popped up in his mind like shooting-gallery ducks, then vanished.

  I can’t do it, he thought, and the thought made him sick. He hated himself, the cowardice he embodied.

  He was powerless before it.

  “Go away, Charley,” he said, very quietly. “I can’t help you. I’m sorry—”

  The sudden SLAM against the door was full-bodied, and more violent than all of the others combined. It made Peter jump backward, heart thumping madly, hot shame flushing up into his cheeks.

  “YOU BASTARD!” Charley bellowed. “YOU LOUSY, CREEPING, GOOD-FOR-NOTHING BASTARD!”

  Peter backed away from the door, heading vaguely toward the bedroom. If he pulled the covers up over his head, and pressed all the pillows on top of it, maybe he wouldn’t have to listen anymore. Maybe he wouldn’t be able to hear the truth that branded him forever . . .

  “YOU KNOW WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN NOW, DON’T YOU? I’M GONNA HAFTA GO OVER THERE, ALL BY MYSELF, AND THEN DANDRIGE IS GOING TO KILL ME! AND YOU KNOW WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN THEN, RIGHT?”

  Charley was sobbing wildly between the words. Peter continued to back away, every step getting harder and harder.

  “I’M GONNA COME BACK AFTER YOU, YOU COWARDLY SON OF A BITCH! I’M GONNA MAKE A POINT OF COMING BACK AFTER YOU, BECAUSE YOU DON’T DESERVE TO LIVE!”

  The sobbing took over completely then. There was one last vicious slam against the door, almost an afterthought; and then Charley’s leaden footsteps staggered miserably down the hall and away.

  Leaving Peter Vincent, the Great Vampire Killer, to drop to his knees and start crying himself: for Charley, for Amy, for Eddie and for the long-lost Herbert McHoolihee.

  But it was already far too late for that.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Darkness, spiraling upward into gray. Hardness beneath her, also spinning, like a wooden raft caught by a whirlpool’s outermost whorl.

  In the distance: strange music, driving and seductive, dark and elemental as freshly drawn heart blood. Injecting her with its rhythms. Awakening her to its call . . .

  Amy pulled herself back into consciousness slowly, battling weakly with the swirl inside her mind. Her eyes flickered open, and she saw that it was indeed dark. There was wood beneath her, yes: a hardwood floor, very old.

  And the music was there as well. Not distant at all. Just soft. Insinuating, she thought, and the word fit just right. It didn’t overwhelm, it worked at her subtly.

  She liked the music. It fit her mood, which was dark and dreamlike. No jagged edges. No stridency at all. Just a wicked, languid, red warmth that suffused her, washing over and through her, making her curl and stretch and roll over luxuriantly, then stare up at the ceiling with a smile on her face.

  “Well, well, well, my little precious one,” said the silken voice above her. “You’ve come back to me. I’m so glad.

  “I’ve been waiting.”

  Fear, as yet, had not occurred to her. She didn’t know where she was. She didn’t know who had spoken. The end of her life was the farthest thing from her mind.

  There were candles in the room. They were the only source of light. Romantic, she thought, enjoying the way the shadows flickered across the walls and ceiling. That’s how I feel. Romantic.

  Like something very special is about to happen.

  A very special shadow loomed over her suddenly: a great silhouette, long and stark and profoundly mas
culine. “Dance with me,” it said, and a long band of darkness stretched out toward her.

  Her memory came back; and with it, her terror.

  He liked the girl. There was something about virgins that appealed to him greatly. They didn’t yet know what they were missing; it was all pent up inside them, coiling, blindly gathering power. When she came, he knew, it would be in a big way.

  He looked forward to it greatly.

  He did not plan on waiting for long.

  She was huddled in the corner now, her eyes wide and pleading. He understood the emotions that were churning inside her; he could taste them in the air, as he had a thousand times before. They were, as he was, undying. They blossomed ever fresh, thank the gods both light and dark. They brought their wide-eyed innocence to the altar for sacrifice, never knowing what they stood to gain, or what they stood to lose.

  One after the other.

  Forever.

  Charley was still at the core of it, of course. The vampire wanted nothing more than to make the kid suffer for his pestiferousness: after that scene in the disco, Rancho Corvallis wasn’t exactly safe anymore, and he hadn’t even finished unpacking. Charley Brewster had definitely climbed to the top of Jerry Dandrige’s shitlist, and breaking in the girl was bound to ruin the boy’s morale.

  But the girl would be fun. No question about it. She would be fun, and she would be delicious, and she would make a wonderful weapon. The combination was unbeatable.

  “Amy, I want you,” he purred. “Come and get me.”

  And then he began to dance.

  For a moment, the panic was complete and untainted. All other considerations were knocked aside like Kewpie dolls by the fastball of fear whipping through her. She was alone in the room with a creature of incredible evil, and it didn’t look like anybody was going to save her, and the fact that she was about to die loomed more enormously over her than the vampire’s projected shadow.

  A shadow that had nothing to do with the light in the room. Like a mirror, it refused to acknowledge his presence. Dandrige cast no shadow.

  Dandrige was shadow.

  And that was where the moment ended. There was more than just panic; there was more than just terror. There was fascination, sick and intrinsically sane all at once.

  Jerry Dandriges didn’t happen past every day, don’t you know. Most lives were filled with perfectly ordinary happenstances: tick tock, seven o’clock, time to watch The Jeffersons. Most people never had undead monsters pursue them all over town.

  Most people had never been seduced by an individual of such incredible beauty and power.

  And that was the other thing that was happening to her: difficult to admit, impossible to deny. There was an aspect of her that was turned on by the dance. There was a longing, inside her, for something entirely outside and beyond ordinary experience. She couldn’t help but respond to the hypnotic motion, the eyes that flashed out of the darkness at her.

  Those eyes . . .

  They were the source of his power over her, she realized. His gorgeous body, the liquid eroticism of his movements, made it hard to look away; his eyes made it impossible. They glowed at her, a gold luminescence that didn’t frighten, but simply drew her in and in . . .

  “No,” she whispered. He hadn’t taken her will this time, made her a puppet that swayed at the end of his strings. He was seducing it, little by little. “No,” she repeated, more strongly this time.

  And then forced herself to look away.

  “Oh, Amy,” the vampire’s voice crooned from behind her. “Don’t do that. Here I am, working so hard to excite you . . .”

  “Stop it,” she whimpered, eyes squeezed tightly shut. In her mind she could still see him moving toward her, his feet barely seeming to touch the floor.

  “Not when we’re having so much fun.” The voice was closer now, cutting more easily through the music that went on and on and on.

  And the terror and lust and fascination all came together like worms in a can, blindly wriggling and squiggling all over each other, with absolutely nowhere to run. The paralysis was worse than the one that Dandrige imposed, because she’d made it herself.

  “Amy . . .” A sibilant whisper, directly above her now.

  She started to cry, curling over onto her side and into the fetal position.

  “Ameeeee . . .” Leaning over her, closer, closer. A gentle, almost etheric touch, sliding over the tight curve of her buttocks . . .

  “NOOO!” she screamed, rolling over and away. Her back hit the wall with a resonant thud. She leaned against it, panting, tears streaming from her eyes.

  “Aw, come on,” he enticed her, coyly grinning. She saw the first glimmer of dimly lit fangs. And his eyes had lost their golden glow; the glow was red now, and brighter. “Don’t try to resist me. It’s much nicer if you just give in . . .”

  “LEAVE ME ALONE, GOD DAMN YOU! I WANT . . .”

  “Your mommy?”

  “NO, CHARLEY, YOU FUCKER!” she wailed, her fists tightening. Her streaming eyes were locked on his, but the fight was still in her. “I WANT CHARLEY, NOT YOU!”

  “You’ll have Charley,” he hissed, his voice no longer coy, “as soon as I’m finished with you. That’s a promise.”

  “YOU BAS—” she began, moving suddenly to her left.

  And then Dandrige lowered the boom.

  It got wearying, after a while. Letting her resist him with her puny will was like letting himself get pummeled with a powderpuff. It very quickly lost its charm.

  His eyes were not the thing. She was mistaken in that. He could have clamped down on her mind from the next room, if he’d wanted to. In her worn-down state, he might even’ve been able to do it from across the street.

  Whatever the case, he clamped down now, and her whole being froze in its tracks. No more resistance. No more trouble at all. She was just a pliant mass of flesh and nerve endings now; her feelings were the only things that she could call her own.

  “Come here,” he said, and she rose to her feet: eyes blank, body swaying to the rhythm of the song. Very slowly, she moved into his arms. Very slowly, they began to move together.

  . . . And his hands were on her, cold upon her, sliding over buttocks and back and breasts and brow, tracing lines of napalm-bright desire wherever they touched. And his lips were there, an inch from her own, never closing that tantalizing distance.

  She found herself hungering for his kiss.

  It was building up inside her. He could feel its gathering fury. Even as she ground herself against him, ardent and animal, a psychic g-spot was being stroked into frenzy.

  He knew the feeling well. His every movement was designed to provoke it. Over the next few seconds, it would build and build.

  And then he would release it.

  Slowly, gently, he eased her head forward to rest on his shoulder. Slowly, his lips peeled back to reveal his long, slender, perfect fangs.

  Her neck was exposed. The vein he sought was laid out before him. Pulsing. Inviting. His mind reeled dizzily for a moment, the bloodlust ecstatically boiling up within him.

  “Now,” he whispered. She moaned in response.

  The penetration began.

  . . . And he was entering her, two tiny tiny sharp sharp points sliding past the first layer of flesh, going deeper, finding the hot red liquid center and piercing it through, going deeper, going deeper . . .

  . . . And she started to scream as he parted her, her thoughts going wet omigod I’m so WET as the thunder inside her swelled up and up . . .

  . . . And then he plunged himself into her fully, and she came, bucking and whining and clawing the air, spasms in perfect sync with the blood pumping out of her like ejaculate in reverse, not giving life but taking it, just taking it . . .

  . . . And the peak went on and on and on, agony and ecstasy in perfect concert, then gradually eased itself down and down as her passion, like her life, drained away . . .

  TWENTY-TWO

  Charley’s desperate pilg
rimage to Peter Vincent’s ate up quite a bit of time, the defeated trek home even more so. It was awfully slow-going on foot.

  By the time he got to his house, it was well past two.

  He stared at the two houses side by side, noting the contrast that seemed to grow by the minute: his house, so plain and comfortable and utterly unassuming; the other, a hulking monstrosity, pulling in on itself like the eye of a hurricane.

  And, somewhere within, the woman he loved.

  God damn him, he cursed silently, thinking of the cowardly Vincent. God damn him to Hell for being such an incredible ball-less wonder. I wish he could have been there, seen Dandrige at work. Then he’d know he had to fight, that there was no middle ground, no way out, no . . .

  He went on, riffing endlessly about shoving the truth down Vincent’s miserable throat, a nonstop internal dialogue of fear and retribution.

  He was so absorbed that he never saw the hand snake out of the bushes toward him.

  When it grasped his shoulder, he nearly died. His heart pounded up his throat like it was catching the next flight out, and he turned, bug-eyed, expecting to die.

  What he found was Peter Vincent, dressed in his classic vampire-killer mode. A very large, very old satchel, all worn leather and brass fittings, was in his hand.

  “Peter Vincent,” he said, bowing smartly, “at your service; ready to do battle with the forces of darkness.”

  Charley didn’t know whether to faint or jump for joy. He half expected a trilling rush of violins to accompany the announcement. He tried to speak, failed miserably.

  “Huh?” he said.

  “Well put,” Peter said. “My sentiments exactly. Now shall we proceed?” He started off toward the house. Charley grabbed him, pulling back.

  “Wait a second,” he said. “Why the big change of heart? An hour ago, you wouldn’t even open the door for me. Now you’re walking face-first into this. What gives?”

  Peter drew a long face. “Not everybody has a code, Charley. We vampire killers do, and I’ve let mine lay fallow for far too long.