The Mammoth Book of Vampires: New edition (Mammoth Books)

by Stephen Jones

  “Of course,” Morton assured him, doing his best to contain the panic he felt. “I’ll be very careful, Mr Brewster,” he vowed, his ordinary face taking on as much purpose as it could. “I’ll report each day if you like. Tell me when you want me to call.”

  “Mid-afternoon should do,” Brewster said, suddenly sounding very bored.

  “Mid-afternoon, every day,” said Morton.

  “Every other day,” corrected Brewster. “If I’m not available, my secretary will record your report, and I’ll review it later. I expect to have numbers where I can reach you while you’re gone.”

  “Certainly. Of course,” said Morton, daring to give the hint of a smile.

  Brewster made sure that did not last. “I expect you to have an evaluation for me within the first twenty-four hours as to the general economic condition of the community and some observations on the political disposition of the citizens.” He indicated the file. “You don’t want to end up on Dan Rather’s bad side, do you?” He made it very plain that if anything went wrong, Morton would take all the heat himself.

  “No,” said Morton, blanching.

  “Keep that in mind, and you should do well,” said Brewster as he leaned forward. “Be astute, Symes.”

  Morton had never been admonished to be astute before, and did not quite know what would be an appropriate response. “I’ll do what I can, sir.” He wanted to make his escape while Brewster still seemed disposed to give it to him.

  “Carry on, Symes,” said Brewster, and at once ignored Morton, not so much as if he had left the room but as if he had disappeared altogether.

  Northern New Hampshire was quite beautiful, the worn mountains dozing in the early-autumn afternoon, their trees still green, though no longer the deep, heady color of summer. The drive was so pleasant that Morton Symes castigated himself for lack of purpose as he drove northward, into increasingly remote regions, his chocolate-colored BMW humming efficiently, the tape deck playing some of Symes’s favorite soft-rock hits. The one delay, caused by a road-repair crew blocking traffic for the better part of forty minutes, brought Morton to North Poindexter, near Colebrook, at sunset. He flipped a mental coin and elected to find a motel for the night rather than press on to Jericho.

  “Just the one night?” asked the clerk in the insufferably quaint inn Morton found off the main street.

  “Just the one.”

  “On your way to the lakes?” asked the clerk, making small talk while Morton filled out the necessary forms.

  “No; Jericho.” Morton looked at him over the rims of his glasses, a move he thought might discourage conversation.

  “Jericho?” said the clerk in some surprise. “Why there?”

  “Business,” said Morton, even more tersely.

  “In Jericho?” The clerk laughed once in disbelief.

  “Why not in Jericho?” asked Morton, in spite of himself.

  The clerk hesitated a bit longer than he should have. “Oh, nothing. Just don’t get many . . . flatlanders going there; that’s all. People from North Poindexter don’t go there.” He handed a key to Morton. “Second door on the left, at the end of the walk-way.”

  “Thanks,” Morton said automatically as he took the key. He was about to pick up his suitcase when he could not resist asking, “Why don’t people from here go to Jericho?”

  This time the clerk considered his answer very carefully. “Not that kind of place,” he said, and turned away, unwilling to say anything more.

  Morton pondered over what the clerk had said, and decided that he might have been right in his assumption that the town was in some form of depression. If it had little tourist trade and the lumber mill was not doing well, it could be that the whole village was hanging on by the proverbial shoestring. He made his first meticulous notes, with records of mileage and amounts spent on fuel and food, then went to the most promising restaurant in town, certain that he was off to a good start.

  Over baked chicken in the North Poindexter restaurant, he decided that he would do his best to be helpful to the people of Jericho. If, like their biblical namesake, their walls were “tumblin’ down”, he would offer to help the citizens shore them back up. He remembered the seminar he had attended three months ago, a seminar that stressed learning to relate to the problems of the taxpayer and to be compassionate and sympathetic in regard to their needs and their problems. He rehearsed in his head the right way to say things, so that he would not sound too much like a cop or an inquisitor.

  Morning found him out of North Poindexter and on the road to Jericho by nine. He had taken great care to dress less formally than usual, in a tweed jacket and grey slacks instead of his usual three-piece suit. One of the things he had learned in the seminar was that most people found casual attire less intimidating and Morton did not want to get off to a bad start with the citizens of Jericho. He listened to light classics – they seemed more appropriate to this warm, windy day – and admired the scenery. In another month, with the trees in their autumnal glory, the drive would be spectacular; now it was pleasant, even refreshing. Morton made a mental note to take a few pictures before he left, so that he could recapture his sense of enjoyment, which led him to think about his destination. A remote village like Jericho might easily become his secret vacation haunt, where he could spend a few days away from the pressure of his work in an unspoiled place. He permitted himself a flight of fancy: his work with the townspeople had earned him their respect and possibly the affection of some, and he was regarded as their welcome outsider on his annual returns. Returns. He chuckled at his own mental pun. Then he concentrated on his driving and the road, making special note of the few buildings he saw at a distance and then the ones that were nearer.

  Two tall Victorian atrocities at the bend of the road were Morton’s first sight of Jericho. The houses were run-down, with peeling paint and broken windows, but even in their heyday neither would have been a sterling example of the carpenter’s Gothic style, in large part because both were so overdone, with turrets and cupolas and widow’s walks and piazzas and fan windows in such frenzied abundance that the basic lines of the houses themselves seemed to be lost behind it all. Morton slowed as he went past the houses, and fancied that they were leaning together, whispering – two ancient crones bedecked in elaborate gowns no longer in fashion. He chided himself for his overactive imagination as he slowed the car just as the rest of the town came into view.

  The main street was predominantly nineteenth century, but with a few older buildings at the far end of the town. Two churches, both austere white buildings, one with a spire and one with a turret, were on opposite sides of and at opposite ends of the street; the older of the two – with the turret at the far end on the left – had been unpainted so long that the wood beneath had weathered to a scaled grey. Next to that church was a Federal-style building with an ancient and faded sign that proclaimed it the Jericho Inn. Between Morton and the Inn were a town hall; a single-story building with an imposing Victorian façade (Morton learned later that it was the bank); a 1930s-vintage post office; a café of sorts, in a building that had once been a private home and was now given over to offices; a small, neglected park; a barnlike building advertising feed, fuel, and ice; a hardware store with a display of plumbing tools and supplies in the window; two small wooden houses, both dating from about 1850, one with a sign tacked by the door saying, KNITTING AND SEWING: REASONABLE RATES; and a more recent house with an art nouveau stained-glass window over the front door; then a 1950s ranch-style house, hideously out of place. Opposite that house was the steepled church; and next to it, an open block over-grown with weeds, identified as the JERICHO PARK by a sign near a rusty children’s playground that ended at a fenced schoolyard; next to that, opposite the two houses, was a medium-sized grocery store, its windows dusty and its doors closed; beyond the store was another house that had been converted to office space that advertised the services of John H. Lawler, accountant; then a more recent building, in the concrete-slab style,
with JERICHO LUMBER COMPANY over the entrance; across from the post office was the Wallace’s Department Store, its window displays at least two years out of date, the mannequins looking like escapees from a 1940s film noir; after that two small shops, one selling candy, the other a bookstore; then a box of a building, opposite the town hall, which housed the two-man police force and the three-cell jail; the place across from the Jericho Inn was much larger, the whole of a block and a half given over to the gardens – now in riotous ruin – of a grotesque mansion, which had started out Federal and had been added to in two distinct layers of Victoriana. Along the street, there were five different vehicles parked: a twenty-year-old Chevy pickup by the hardware store, a muddy Edsel in front of the post office, a four-year-old Cadillac across from the bank, a step van by the department store, and a cherry 1956 Thunderbird sports car by the park.

  Morton stared at the town, noting that most of the secondary streets were filled with single– and two-family residences, and that no one seemed to be up and about, though the morning was closer to lunch than breakfast. He started down the main street, looking for signs of life.

  In the distance a school bell rang, but there was no change apparent on the street.

  After a brief period of consideration, Morton pulled in across the street from the town mansion and settled down to watch Jericho, wondering why the school bell seemed to attract no response other than the occasional answer of hoots from the volunteer fire department, a block and a half away.

  An hour passed; two. Morton was hard put to keep his eyes open, or to pay attention to the main street, and when he did, he could detect no change. No wonder the town was depressed; no one appeared to work in it. In fact, no one seemed to live in it. Over his greatest determination Morton began to doze.

  He was awakened at sunset by a tap on his window and a face all but pressed against the glass. He straightened up and adjusted his glasses, trying not to appear startled.

  “Something the matter?” asked the uniformed cop as Morton rolled down the window.

  “No,” said Morton at once, adding, “sir,” as an afterthought. “The afternoon . . . I got drowsy.”

  “It happens,” said the cop, standing up. “You’re new in town.”

  “Yes,” said Morton, reaching into his pocket for his wallet. He opened it to show his IRS identification and his driver’s license. “Morton Symes.”

  The policeman inspected these two documents narrowly, then gave a grudging nod. “It appears you are.”

  “And you?”

  “Wilson, Dexter Wilson,” he said, not offering his hand. “You passing through or staying?”

  This was not a very promising beginning, but Morton was not deterred. “I have some business to do here.”

  “Uh-huh.” Wilson rocked back on his heels. “Well, lots of luck with it.” He made a gesture that was not quite a salute, and then ambled away.

  Watching him go, Morton noticed that there were a few other people on the street, strolling in the last fading light of day. They moved silently, in pairs or singly, making no effort to stop for conversation. When they met, there was scarcely so much as a nod exchanged, and never did anyone hail one of the others moving along the sidewalk. This puzzled Morton, though he supposed that people living together in the same small town might not have much to say to each other after a time. There was also the taciturn nature of New Englanders, he reminded himself, their disinclination to small talk. He rolled up his window and locked the passenger door before he got out of the car.

  There was no one at the reception desk in the Jericho Inn, which had the same dusty look of neglect as the rest of the town. Morton hesitated, then gave his attention to the large, old-fashioned register, noticing that the most recent guest had stopped there fourteen months ago. He frowned, then took a pen and added his own name, address, and occupation to the required lines. Assuming the Inn had no guests at the moment, he wondered if it would be proper simply to inspect the rooms and choose the one he liked best. He was weighing the possibilities, when he heard a voice rusty with disuse behind him.

  “Get anything for you?”

  Morton turned and saw a man in late middle years, rather scrawny and rumpled, standing in the door to the dining room.

  “Why, yes,” he said when he had recovered from the shock of being discovered. Little as he wished to admit it, the silent arrival of the man had terrified him for an instant. “I’d like a room. With a bath.”

  The man did not move; he regarded Morton with a measuring look. “Fixing to stay long?”

  “Probably a week,” said Morton.

  “Not much to do around here,” said the man.

  “I’m here on business, not pleasure,” Morton informed him. “I will need a week to complete it.”

  “Business?” repeated the man. “In Jericho?” He laughed unpleasantly as he shambled closer. “Don’t have much fancy here,” he said.

  “You mean in the Inn?” Morton asked with a significant raise to one eyebrow.

  “That; Jericho, too.” The man was now behind the reception desk. “Might take less time than you think, your business.”

  “I doubt it,” said Morton, determined to assert his authority and establish a more reasonable level of communication between them.

  “Suit yourself. You want a room, do you?” He read the signature Morton had just put in the register. “IRS. Well, well, well.”

  “We have some questions about Jericho.” Morton once again offered his identification. “I trust you take Master Card.”

  “Cash,” said the man. “Don’t hold with plastic here.”

  Morton shook his head, uncertain if he had brought enough cash to pay for the whole week. His head ached at the thought of reviewing cash transactions with their lack of supporting paper. He wondered if the rest of the town were as unorthodox. “How much for a week?”

  “Two hundred forty dollars for seven days,” said the man. “No meals included. Linen changed twice a week. Coffee available in the morning upon request, two dollars extra.”

  Sighing, Morton drew three hundred dollars from his wallet and hoped that the remaining hundred would be sufficient. He hoped that the bank would be prepared to honor one of his credit cards if none of the businesses were willing. “I’ll want coffee every morning, so that means $254; $46 change.”

  “Fast with those numbers, aren’t you?” The man opened a drawer under the counter and handed four worn bills to Morton.

  “You want a receipt?”

  Morton blinked. “Of course,” he said, knowing that not getting one was inconceivable.

  “Now or when you leave?”

  “Now,” said Morton.

  The man shook his head, but brought out a receipt pad and scribbled the date and amount on it. “Need anything more than that?”

  Morton grew irritated. “Please state what the money is for, including the length of the stay and morning coffee.”

  Grudgingly, the man did as Morton requested. He tore off the receipt and handed it to Morton. “You can have the front center room,” he said, pointing toward the ceiling. “First floor. Bay window. It’s the Ivy Room. All our rooms are named for plants.” He handed over a key. “The hot water don’t work real good.”

  This information, under the circumstances, did not surprise Morton. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said, and picked up his suitcase. “Is there a phone in the room?”

  “Payphone’s by the restrooms. That’s all we got.” The man jerked his thumb toward a narrow hallway. “Down that way.”

  “Thanks,” said Morton, aware that he was late in phoning in. Brewster would be displeased, but that could not be helped. Morton started up the stairs, watching the desk clerk covertly, noticing how pale the man was. Perhaps he was ill, which would explain his rudeness. Then the clerk returned the stare, and Morton, abashed, averted his eyes and continued to his room.

  The Ivy Room had ancient wallpaper covered in ivy twines. Luckily, it was faded, or it would have
been hideous; as it was, there was an air of decayed gentility about the room, and Morton, while not delighted, was not as upset as he had feared he might be. The bathroom had an old-fashioned stand sink and a legged bathtub as long and narrow and deep as a coffin. The medicine cabinet of the sink lacked a mirror, though from the look of it there had been one some time ago. Morton set out his shaving gear and took out the mirror he always carried when he traveled. When he was satisfied with the arrangement of his things, and that the enormous towels were clean and fresh, he went back into the bedroom and set about hanging his clothes in the antique armoire that dominated one side of the room. It was too late to call Brewster now, he knew. As he sat down to make his report for the day, he did his best to suppress a twinge of guilt. The next afternoon he would explain it all to Brewster – from the payphone.

  By the time he finished his report, it was quite dark. The two forty-watt bulbs in the ceiling fixture barely got rid of the gloom, and the desk lamp was not much brighter. With concealed exasperation, Morton changed his shirt and tie in preparation for finding supper. “It is supper in this part of the world, isn’t it?” he said to the walls. Perhaps tomorrow he would also invest in some stronger light bulbs. Then he hesitated. The wiring in many of these old buildings could not take bright lights. He could get one of those battery-powered reading lights at the hardware store; that would do it.

  To Morton’s surprise, there were a number of people on the street when he walked out of the Inn. He noticed the same odd silence about them. He could tell they were curious about him, but no one approached him, and when he got too near any of the pedestrians they moved away from him, avoiding him. He thought that perhaps the clerk from the Inn had mentioned his work. How sad that so many people mistrusted the IRS, Molton thought as he found a coffee shop on one of the side streets not far from the post office.