by Alan Ryker
"Nobody else needs a storm shelter."
"None of them are as smart as us. Half of them probably watched the storm from their porches. Let them sit there like the slack-jawed hicks they are and watch a tornado suck them up. We're getting a shelter. End of discussion."
Keith had indeed caught some flak for it. He didn't like to give anyone an excuse to make fun. He couldn't retort back, because he'd always retorted with his fists. Irene didn't allow that.
Staring at the shelter, he smiled and shook his head.
"Stubborn woman."
But that brought back another memory, and his smile faded. Irene, shrunken and frail in her hospital bed. Him talking to her doctor out in the hallway. The chemotherapy wasn't working, but the doctor wouldn't let a crack of doubt through.
"Be straight with me," Keith had asked. "How much more can she take?"
"Irene is strong. She's a stubborn woman, isn't she?"
The doctor had promised Keith that that would carry her through the next few months of Hell, but it hadn't. Apparently she hadn't been stubborn enough.
So there remained no lingering trace of a smile on Keith's lips as he gripped the steel handle of the steel door. He leveled his shotgun at the door, twisted the handle so that it unlatched, and yanked it open.
The smell hit him with almost palpable force. The door had been constructed so that a tornado couldn't pull it open, and it had kept the stink sealed in. Keith turned his head a bit to the side and brought a hand up to cover his nose and mouth. Holding his shotgun level with the other hand he squinted into the darkness. He couldn't see what was down there. It avoided the bit of daylight let in by the open door.
Keith leaned closer and saw something pale move in the darkness. He grabbed his shotgun with both hands, held it to his shoulder and trained it on the movement. A hiss sounded and then the pale something ran for the stairs.
"Holy shit."
Keith pulled the trigger and fell backwards. The thing had moved so fast. Keith scrabbled back on his butt, kicking at the ground with his boot heels, but nothing came up through the door.
Keith got to his hands and knees and grabbed the shotgun he'd tossed aside in panic. He stood, not quite daring to look down into the darkness again. Instead he stayed back, aiming above the door, where the creature would have to appear if it wanted to attack him.
He'd gotten a better look at the thing than he had when it had sat on his cow's back, but not much better. Long limbed and white. And he'd seen fangs. A huge mouthful of crooked fangs.
Keith waited and calmed himself. His hands stopped shaking. His breathing slowed. The squint came back into his eyes. He didn't flinch when a clawed hand that would have been pale had it not been covered in dried black gore gripped the edge of the doorway. He just trained his gun above the hand and waited for the thing to show more of itself.
But something strange happened. Smoke rose from the hand and Keith heard a distinct sizzling sound. With a piercing shriek, the hand was withdrawn.
Keith waited for another few breaths but knew that the creature would not come out. Looking over his shoulder every few steps, he jogged to his truck and grabbed a flashlight from the tool chest.
Shining the flashlight down the hole, a small part of Keith wanted to run and hide. That small part did. What remained was remorseless. The creature blinked at the light and hissed at him pitifully. He shot it a second time. Then a third. The thing lay twitching on the concrete floor. Keith's Remington semi-automatic shotgun carried the hunting-legal three rounds in the tube. He also kept one in the chamber. He shot it again.
Keith and Roy sat on Keith's porch, sawing at steaks on plates in their laps. For a time, the only sounds were the scraping of serrated metal on ceramic, the chewing of meat and the slurping of beer. The grill at the far end of the porch still smoked a bit.
Keith watched Roy slide his last hunk of steak around in the blood and juice and put it in his mouth. He sat the plate on the railing and leaned back. He chewed slowly, apparently savoring the last bite, and finally swallowed.
"Now that was a steak," Roy said.
Keith nodded. He'd stretched his legs out in front of him and laced his hands over his stomach.
"Most people go their whole lives without tasting a decent steak," Roy said. "You ever think about that?"
Keith shrugged.
"All they get is that stringy, grain-fed crap from the grocery store. Been sitting there for who knows how long before they buy it. Can you imagine?"
"Gotta feel bad for them," Keith said.
"That's the truth. Me, I've got more good beef than I know what to do with. Both my deep freezes are full. I'm giving meat away to anyone who ain't scared to eat it at this point."
"Something still getting at your cattle?"
"Had a steer die the day before yesterday."
Keith nodded and looked out at the setting summer sun. From his porch the horizon was huge. Irene had loved to watch the sunset out there. For a time the brothers sat quietly with their own thoughts, sipping their beers.
"You know, the way you asked that question…" Roy shook his head, then sipped his beer.
"What?" Keith asked.
"The way you asked that question, it sounded like maybe your cattle aren't dying. And it's been awhile since you've mentioned it."
"Everybody's cattle are dying," Keith said.
Roy sat with one eyebrow raised expectantly, waiting for Keith to finish. Keith didn't like that Roy could read him like that.
"Except mine," Keith said.
Roy sat bolt upright in his chair. "I knew it! I can tell every time. So what? What are you holding back? You letting my cattle die to get a better price on yours?"
Roy's mouth was smiling but his eyes weren't. And Keith could tell that his mouth couldn't hold the smile much longer.
"Calm down," Keith said. "That's why I wanted you to come over here tonight. I know what's killing our cattle."
"Are you serious? What?"
Keith looked out at the sky. The sun had fully slipped below the horizon. Only a red glow remained. Keith nodded and stood.
"Come on. This I can't explain. This you have to see."
He led Roy across the yard to his storm shelter, then pulled his keys from his pocket. He'd wound a thick chain through the metal door handle and another metal handle set into the door frame. Unlocking the heavy padlock, Keith pulled the chain out and tossed it aside.
"I don't think I really need this anymore, but why take chances?"
Keith cupped a hand over his nose and mouth in anticipation, and opened the door. Roy clamped both hands to his face, but still gagged at the stench.
"Good Lord."
"Prepare yourself," Keith said. He stepped down onto the first step and reached inside the shelter. A carabiner clip connected another chain to an eyebolt bored into the inside of the concrete wall. Keith unclipped the chain and stepped back out.
"Come out," he said.
A deep-throated growl rumbled out of the shelter.
"Keith, what the Hell?"
"I think he's scared of you. He's gotten pretty obedient," Keith said. Then down into the shelter, "I said out!"
Keith braced himself and pulled the chain hard, walking backwards at first, then reeling it in once he had momentum. A pale humanoid creature stumbled out of the shelter and sprawled on the ground. Roy gasped as it tensed and stared back and forth between the brothers in terror.
Keith lifted the thing from the ground by its thick leather collar. It hissed in his face. Keith set his jaw, pulled the creature in by its collar with one hand and punched it in its distended maw with the other. Then he tossed it to the ground.
On all fours, the thing tried to scurry back into the shelter, but Keith grabbed the chain and jerked it hard. The thing toppled onto its back.
"Stay!" Keith shouted.
The creature seemed to have had enough. It rolled over, got to its haunches, and stayed. But Keith was glad that it had decided to act
up. It gave him a chance to show Roy the dominance he had over it.
"What in God's name is that?" Roy asked. He maintained his distance, but leaned forward and ducked down, trying to see its face.
"This is what's been attacking our cattle."
"But what is it?"
"I think it's a vampire."
Roy stood up then and shifted his gaze to Keith. Keith maintained the same expression, knowing that Roy was looking for a smile, a wink, anything that said that Keith was fooling with him.
"Are you serious?" Roy asked.
"Something obviously happened to Brandon when he tried to steal my fertilizer. He died, but he didn't stay dead."
Roy's eyes opened wide. He stepped in closer and dropped down to his haunches to inspect the vampire. Keith pulled Brandon's collar, forcing him to look up.
Roy's mouth worked, but nothing came out. He stood and talked almost as if he were trying to convince not only himself, but Keith. "Oh my God. That's Brandon. Holy shit."
"Yeah, I didn't recognize him at first either, but—"
"What happened to him?"
"I guess the vampires got him. Then he rose from the dead."
Roy scoffed, but his face stayed slack. "Those are just stories. Those aren't real."
"And yet…" Keith said, pulling Brandon's chain.
"But look at him. He doesn't look like Dracula."
"No cape. No tux," Keith said.
But Roy pointed to the end of Brandon's arms. "No hands."
It was true. The pale, muscular forearms ended at the wrist in stumps.
"That was me," Keith said. "He'd gone to ground in my shelter. Makes a good enough tomb for a vampire I guess. I didn't even know what it was when I put a few loads of buckshot in its chest, but I was surprised as shit when it didn't die. I wanted to figure out what it was, so I chained the door and waited for it to weaken. It took a few days. I just kept coming back to check on it. At first it like to have shook the door off its hinges when I shouted at it. But its responses got more and more feeble. Finally, I went down there with my .45 and my hatchet. That's when I first saw that it was Brandon. Chopped off his hands and bashed in his fangs."
Roy stared at him with unmistakable horror. "Keith, that's Brandon. That's a human being."
"Not anymore."
"How do you know he's a vampire?"
"Stinks like a corpse. Dead but moving. Burns in the sun. Drinks blood. Has fangs. Well, had fangs. Need me to go on?"
"Still, that's Brandon."
Keith shook his head. "He's an animal now. There's nothing human left in him. I give him a bowlful of cow's blood every couple of days and he's obedient as a dog. And I noticed something: my cattle stopped getting attacked."
"Because you caught what was attacking them."
"Think before you talk. The problem had been going on for a long time before they got Brandon."
Roy looked abashed. "Okay, you're right. So what then?"
"They're territorial. If I keep my cattle in my near pasture, they're fine. I move them out, they come back with wounds again. I've been testing this theory. It works every time. So I want to help you out, too."
"How?"
"You keep your cattle in your west pasture, I'll keep mine in my east, and we'll build a shed for Brandon between them."
It made perfect sense. Keith waited for the agreement. Instead, Roy looked at Brandon with some mixture of distaste and compassion on his face.
"You don't think we should tell the police?"
"It's a bit late for that," Keith said. "Seeing as how I've mutilated him and kept him chained up."
"But they're trying to figure out what's been killing the cattle. They need to know about this."
"Roy, you know that my inclination has always been to take care of my own business. If I were otherwise inclined, if I had told someone, you wouldn't have a farm right now. The government would have taken all our land, all our contaminated cattle, all our crops. Hell, they'd probably take us, too. Quarantine us for being exposed to these creatures."
"But these things are killing people."
"They've been around a long while and only Brandon and Dennis have disappeared so far. I've gone after them before and they've run off. I think they're afraid of people."
"So why him?" Roy said, gesturing at Brandon.
"Haven't figured that out yet. I can see why they'd take Dennis, a crippled, scrawny meth head. I don't know about Brandon, but good riddance."
"I don't know…"
"How much profit are you making off your cattle? Any at all? Even the ones they don't kill aren't putting on any meat because they're anemic. How long can you last like this? You want to go work in a factory?"
Roy looked at the ground and shrugged. Keith looked at his soft younger brother and got more worked up.
"I'm trying to do you a favor. I could put Brandon between my pastures and protect both of them, but I'm offering to share. I'm done talking about this. You know I don't like explaining myself. Yes or no?"
Roy started to speak, but didn't. He stood silent, his mouth working, looking from Brandon to the ground to Brandon. Keith tried to keep his temper in check with his brother. He knew Roy meant well. He knew that Roy was one of the only people on the face of the Earth who gave a damn about him. But Roy was so damn weak.
"This is farm life. Living on a farm has always been about life and death. This can't be the worst thing you've ever had to do!" Finally, Keith did what he hated doing. He made Roy's decision for him, leaving him guiltless. "We're putting Brandon between our pastures."
Roy nodded, but wouldn't look up at him. "Can we stop calling it Brandon?"
Forcing himself to calm down, Keith said, "Sure, but you have to come up with a name. I've never been good at that."
"How about 'the vampire?'"
"Well, I guess I could have come up with that."
"Those pastures aren't going to be enough for all our cattle for long," Roy said, finally looking at him.
"That's why I've trained my dogs not to fear this thing. We're going to track down another one."
They built the wooden structure right against the fence that separated their properties. It had a dirt floor, but Keith had sunk the four-by-four corner posts deep into the earth and cemented them down. Without hands and without the room to stand or even move that much, Brandon would never be able to work his way out. The structure sat so low that it looked less like a shed than a coffin. The effect was enhanced by the fact that it had a lid rather than a door. Keith was nailing corrugated tin to the heavy wooden lid to keep it from rotting.
"You think it's sturdy enough?" Roy asked. He took a drink from a gallon jug of water.
Keith nodded, several nails pinched between his lips.
"What about the sun? We don't want him cooking out here."
Keith took the last nail from his mouth and pounded it into the tin. "That'd be a real shame."
"You know what I mean. You think this'll keep out the sunlight?"
Keith lifted the lid on its heavy hinges. "Only one way to find out." He looked at Roy.
Roy shook his head and took a step back. "No way. I don't think so."
"Then hold this for me."
"Dang this is heavy," Roy said as he took the weight of the lid from Keith.
Keith climbed in and lay down. "Well?" he said.
"What?" The word came out strained as Roy struggled to keep the lid up.
"Close it."
The lid clunked down suddenly. Inside the shed, Keith shook his head at his soft little brother.
The thing really was a coffin. Not totally dark, though. One gap let in a generous wedge of light. Maybe enough to cook Brandon. Maybe not. But Keith noted its position. Then he lay back and enjoyed the silence.
"How does it look?" Roy asked, muffled by the thick wooden walls.
"Shut up."
"What?"
"Shut up!"
The coffin was hot. Keith crossed his arms over his chest and c
losed his eyes. It made him chuckle at first. He thought of Dracula, not in a castle in Europe, but in a wooden shed in the middle of the Kansas prairie. Then he thought of Irene.
She'd been lying like that in her hospital bed one day when he walked in. She was so thin and frail that for a second he thought she was really dead. Then she opened one eye, shut it again, and smiled.
"What the Hell are you doing?" Keith walked across the room and sat in his usual chair beside Irene's bed.
"Practicing."
"That's not funny."
"Sorry." She looked a bit angry. "Guess my sense of humor's gotten sick, too."
They sat in silence for awhile, until she finally asked, "How's the farm?"
"You know how it is," Keith said, still hurt.
"Yeah."
Keith took her hand and forced the anger away. She was acting out because she was scared. He couldn't hold that against her. "How are you feeling?"
"You know how it is."
"No, I don't."
"It hurts."
"Bad?"
"Pretty bad. And," she looked down and smoothed her thin blanket, "I don't think it's going to get better."
"Please don't say that."
"I'm sorry. I'm not happy about it either."
"You can't leave me."
"I thought this was about me." She smiled weakly.
"No. This is about me. You can't leave me."
"I know. I'm sorry. What do you want me to do?"
"You've always taken pride in being so damned stubborn; so be stubborn. Fight."
She nodded. "It just hurts."
"Roy, I thought I saw your brother over here." It was Wheeler's voice.
Sweat poured down Keith's face. The little box had grown extremely hot. He smacked the lid with his palm, then helped press it up as Roy lifted it.
Keith climbed out. He glared at Sheriff Wheeler as he dusted himself off. He was drenched in sweat. It had soaked the back of his shirt, and the dirt clung to it and refused to be slapped away. Wheeler watched Keith with a smirk on his lips. Keith glared right back.
"Now what were you doing in there, Keith?" Sheriff Wheeler asked.
"Checking for holes," Roy said.
"And what exactly are you two building here?"
Roy slapped the lid. "It's a sort of a tool shed."
