The Last Hellfighter

by Flowers, Thomas S.

  Holmwood had been blubbering at this point, struggling to form but one simple word. "Why?"

  The Professor, looking as steely as he had in that crumbling church in the Argonne Forest, glared as Ben began breaking chairs and tables for wood. He looked at the shaken Sheriff and said in his still thick German accent, "They are a blight that cannot be truly cleansed except by fire—the ultimate omen of purity."

  Holmwood said nothing more, he simply watched as Ben struck the match and the fire began to smolder and grow, consuming the headless bodies and their forlorn heads. Taking the sheriff's Ford Model-A, they made their way through the settling dust storm to Harker's farmhouse as the sun ahead of them began its decent on the endless horizon.

  It was then that Sheriff Holmwood finally spoke.

  "Look out there," he said, "You used to be nothing but endless green and golden wheat. The whisper of the wind was kind and gentle and soft. Now look, nothing but brown, ugly sand and dirt, like the dunes of some desert place, totally devoid of life and beauty."

  Ben followed the sheriff's gaze out the window as he drove up to his farmhouse. The change of the land was significant—and perhaps far worse than they could possibly imagine.

  Mina was on the front porch as they pulled up. Her face an odd mixture of emotion. Joy and fear and comfort and confusion.

  The men piled out.

  Ben walked up to the porch as Helwing and Holmwood hung back a pace or two. He put one foot on the porch step, looking up at his wife. "Hey lady, long time."

  Mina was crying now, softly, quietly. "Ben...what's going on?"

  Ben reached for her hand.

  She offered.

  He took it and stepped up on to the porch and kissed her cheek, touching gently on the bump of her stomach. Leaning forward he whispered, "I love you."

  More tears as she embraced him.

  And then she shoved him, more out of frustration than anger.

  "Benjamin, you better start explaining yourself. Why are you here?" Mina looked over at Holmwood and then the old Professor. "And who is he?"

  Ben followed her gaze. He looked back at her. "Let's go inside and I'll tell you everything."

  * * *

  Mina sat at the kitchen table. Her mouth moving but no words came out. Her gaze searched far away, no doubt trying to make sense of everything that had happened within the last week or so and with everything they were telling her now. The happiness they had obtained, now stained by death, confusion, anger, and that part of her that wants to love her husband but doesn't understand—or never wanted to see that darkness inside him, the kind her girlfriends had talked about, the way soldiers get when they go off to war and do unimaginable things. There was that and there were also the dust storms that seemed to come from nowhere. God's wrath, the people in the papers and on the radio said. And James's pneumonia. Still, it was that little girl showing up in the middle of the night dressed in a tattered Sunday dress that was the worst of it all. And all the horror that proceeded that moment, how the girl had flung herself into the air, a fact her mind had denied was possible at the time, and Ben taking the saw and cutting off her head—she'd never seen him so ruthless and violent, taking to the task, no matter how he would deny it, so easily. And with that ghostly pale looking Doc Seward watching, Ben dragged that little girl's corpse and burned her out in the dirt lawn.

  She believed Ben had snapped, or at least that is what she told herself. She wanted to believe that and not something supernatural. The world was full of enough monsters to conjure make-believe ones. It was sane to think that the War had done this to him. The girl was deranged or something, attacked, and Ben simply reacted, as he would in battle, taking the nearest weapon which happened to be a hand saw...and he burned her body...because that's what they did in the war? To coverup the evidence and pray Seward never said a thing?

  No. It didn't make sense. Not then. Not now.

  But it certainly didn't make what they had told her that much easier to swallow—a version of events that turned the world upside down, creating monsters from shadows. If it hadn't been for Sheriff Holmwood and his bloodied arm and that cold, hard stare he wore on his pale face since arriving—the kind of look that doesn't need words to tell what terror they'd seen, she might not have believed a lick of what Ben, though she loved him so, and this stranger, this so-called German professor, said.

  "Mina?" Ben reached to touch her hand.

  She pulled away, and immediately blushed. "I'm sorry...I'm still processing everything...these things, they are like in the book, right? Bram Stoker? Is that what you mean?"

  He smiled weakly at his wife. "I understand, trust me. Had I not seen those things with my own eyes, I would doubt everything as well."

  Professor Helwing gazed at them both from across the table. Stroking his beard thoughtfully. "That has been their greatest triumph, to remain in the shadows. That is why it is so important to name them for what they are—there is power in naming things. These creatures—as I call them vampyre, they are also known as the Unclean, vampires in the modern tongue. Nosferatu. The Undead. And while they have existed a millennium in folklore as myth and fable, they continue to thrive on mankind's ignorance. They exist as a nomadic species, preying on man's intolerance. Imagine if we could believe that something viler than ourselves could exist in this world. Moving from war to war, turmoil to turmoil, stalking as a shark does the scent of blood in the water."

  Ben looked up at the Professor, most of this he'd already heard a dozen times or more, and still—perhaps it was the old German's hypnotic voice or the sheer calamity of it all that drew him in.

  Mina was staring at Helwing too, as was Holmwood who sat by the window—his arm freshly bandaged, the pallor of skin returning to normal.

  "Where do they come from?" the Sheriff asked. "What do they want?"

  At this the Professor laughed. He sighed and leaned back in his chair. "I have been searching for those answers all my life. As to the latter, what does any predator want? They have no desire for world domination, as far as I know. I've never seen their ilk spread beyond the size of a pack of wolves. The vampyre are nothing more than a leech, feeding upon the misery and marrow of mankind since...well...who truly knows how long. Private Harker and I, along with Mr. Renfield, travelled to Egypt. While there we discovered evidence in the Tomb of King Tutankhamen—that would date their existence to 1300 B.C.E. Though I suspect the vampyre have been around much longer."

  Holmwood coughed as if he'd choked on his spit. "King Tut's Tomb? Are you serious? I read about that in the paper, David Soul did an article about it in the Champagne Herald. Wasn't it that...Carver fella who discovered it?"

  Helwing sneered. "Carter is nothing but a second-rate archaeologist. It was with my suggestion that he search deeper within the necropolis of the Kings."

  Grinning now, full of boyish curiosity, Holmwood asked, "And what did you find in King Tut's tomb?"

  At this, Ben found his corncob pipe and struck a match, taking long drags of smoke and exhaling into the air. He turned to the window, glancing out at the setting purple sun. Sneaking peeks at his wife's reflection, worried about the frown deepening across her brow.

  "Just as I said," Helwing continued, "evidence of the vampyre. According to the legend, a pestilence had broken out in Thebes, a mysterious disease. A sickness that came at night and brought back the dead. There was mention of Osiris and Isis within the hieroglyphics carved on the walls. Tales mostly, I imagine, but I have little doubt King Tut did in fact hunt this scourge, he even gave his life in the process. That is where Carter got things wrong. He was no boy King, he was a warrior—a hunter."

  Ben exhaled smoke, remembering very vividly the images on those walls in that sandy tomb, of fanged beasts and bats and the dead returning to life.

  Holmwood was nodding slowly, trying to process, his eyes searching, reading some invisible book. "Right. Okay, so this...these vampires, they've been around a long time...but...why hasn't someone, I don't know
...I just feel like we would have heard about something like this."

  "As I said before, their numbers never grow too large not to remain hidden. They stalk the calamites of man like a mist of poison shrouded by the cloak of death and violence and suffering." Helwing shook his head as he spoke. "So often I've heard men say, 'why haven't we known of this?' Yet the truth has always been there in the shadows and remains, elusive to those untouched by the presence of the vampyre."

  Holmwood seemed to accept some of what the professor said, nodding slowly, rubbing his eyes with a trembling hand. "Okay. Professor. How do you kill them?"

  The old man sighed. "Not well enough, I'm afraid."

  "What do you mean by that?"

  "Only that whatever measures that have been taken for over a millennium have not stuck."

  "Are you saying they can't be killed? What happened with those at the jailhouse, they sure looked dead to me."

  "Oh, you may sever the head and burn what remains of the turned, but still the pestilence remains on this earth. The vampyre, no matter how few, have obviously yet to be exterminated. Like puppets on a string, these undead—the unclean turned who inhabit those you love and know, those can be dispatched easily enough if one is careful. Separate the head and burn the body with fire—a purification if you will. But this is no Penny Dreadful, crucifix, holy water, and wooden stakes cannot kill, garlic either. Sunlight however is the vampyres truest enemy—the light that exposes the dark. Direct sunlight will kill them as if God had cast them directly into hell. And let me assure you, gentlemen, you do not want to be counted as one of their ilk for there is no more foul or relentless an enemy of man in the occult world, than this dead-alive creature spewed up from the grave. The turned are no longer who they once were—they are slaves to their thirst for living blood. Once bitten and left in a state in which the virus can take effect, evil then invades the soul and turns it to ash."

  Silence again, thinking, processing.

  Again, Holmwood spoke up, "But what are they doing here? Why are they here in Champagne?"

  Helwing sat forward, his eyes bright with intrigue. "Exactly, what are they doing here? Part of me wants to think they are following the famine—the dust storms, but—"

  "There are no coincidences," Ben said, exhaling smoke.

  Helwing looked at him, nodding. "Not usually."

  Holmwood glanced at each of them, his mouth agape. "You want to fill me in?"

  Looking away, Ben knew in his heart it was true, but couldn't put it in words - wouldn't.

  Helwing watched Ben but spoke to Holmwood. "Revenge, quite simply."

  The sheriff looked to Ben and then back to the professor. "Revenge? You mean for what happened in that church you mentioned, killing one of them? Why...why would they care?"

  Nearly laughing, Helwing shrugged. "They shouldn't, not really. They're predators, but they are not vindictive—or at least I've never come across any lore or any other evidence that would suggest they are. Like animals they would defend themselves, but to travel so far away from their traditional hunting grounds for one slain vampyre...it sounds unimaginable."

  "Until now," Ben cut in. "This, whatever is happening, it feels very personal."

  "But why should it?" Helwing asked. "I've slain dozens of their ilk and nothing."

  "I can't explain why else they would be here—in my gut, I knew...I knew they were coming." Ben rubbed his face, clenching down on his corncob pipe, ignoring the burning of the smoke in his eyes.

  Beside him, Mina glanced at Ben and then back into her own hands.

  He knew why her cheeks had gone red and it wasn't because she was proud of him; it was because she was probably feeling as if she didn't know him at all. When he—and Renfield—had returned to New York, they mentioned nothing of their exploits in Egypt. And, how could he? Nothing would have made sense. Why tell someone a nightmare is real when it is much easier to believe it is not?

  Finally, she spoke, whispering almost from the corner of her mouth. "Why didn't you tell me about any of this? About what really happened to Renfield?"

  He wanted to reach for her hand again but stopped himself. "Mina—I wanted to put that part of my life behind me. What we faced in the Argonne...I thought I was done with it. I followed and searched for as far as I was willing to go, but then I wanted to come home, to have a normal life. And I did. With you."

  She nodded, understating maybe, yet the hurt expression remained.

  From the back room, James began coughing again, sputtering dryly, hacking and wheezing as if he had nothing in his lungs but sand.

  Mina stood. "I'll check on him. And after, I am going to bed. Goodnight, gentlemen." And without another word, she disappeared down the hallway.

  Ben watched her go until he realized Helwing was staring at him. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair and started picking at his finger nail, blowing smoke from between his lips.

  Clearing his throat, Holmwood asked, "So...how did you know to come here? Were you tracking them vampires or something?"

  Ben perked up, this was something he had wanted to ask the professor as well. It had only been a week or so since he had written his letter, and he had addressed the letter to Cambridge in England—the only address he knew where the old man might be.

  Helwing scratched his beard. "This bothers me as well—as you said Benjamin, there are no coincidences. I had been invited to lecture in New York following a sabbatical when your letter arrived. I noticed it had been addressed for Cambridge, and I assumed someone knew I was there and decided to send the letter to me directly instead of shipping it off across the Atlantic. Coincidences, though...strange. Anyhow, I read the letter and made plans to travel to Texas immediately."

  Ben frowned—indeed it was a strange series of events, or perhaps it was only good luck that whomever was delivering the letter knew of Professor Helwing and opted to give it to him personally.

  "Cambridge? That's in England, right?" Holmwood asked in his usual inquisitive way, oblivious of the reactions of those around him.

  Helwing nodded, "Yes, I had been on sabbatical. Mr. Renfield found me—"

  "Renfield?" Ben interrupted, leaning forward.

  "I was preparing for another expedition when he arrived at my lodgings. He seemed quite...lost really," Helwing cocked his head, looking at Ben. "The ways of the heart, as I understand. Love—or love lost is a very tricky thing."

  Ben looked away. "We had a...falling out." He glanced at Holmwood who looked full of questions. "He was in love with Mina."

  Holmwood gestured to the hallway. "Mina, your Mina?"

  He nodded. "He was in love with her, but she was not in love with him. She loved me—and as it turned out, I was in love with her. I tried—"

  Helwing waved him off. "No need explaining yourself. As I said, the ways of the heart..." He looked to Holmwood, "As I was saying, Mr. Renfield arrived as I was preparing for another expedition. He wanted to join me. I was concerned about his...well...injures, but he assured me he would be fine—"

  "I'm sorry, you said injuries?"

  Helwing rolled his eyes. "He was wounded by the vampyre—which is why I took him at his word, to survive such an ordeal as he did takes strength."

  Holmwood exhaled loudly, "Right."

  "Where did ya'll go?" Ben asked, intrigued, and partly that he did not wish to discuss the extent of his old friend's injuries.

  "West Asia, in the collapsed Ottoman Empire now called Iraq by the British government. We searched within the Tigris–Euphrates river system for the Lost Temple of Lamashtu," he looked to Holmwood, "and before you ask, Lamashtu was a Mesopotamian goddess depicted typically as having a hairy body, the head of a lion, donkey teeth and ears, long fingers and fingernails, and sharp bird-like talons for feet." He laughed drily and lowered his voice, as if telling a bedtime story. "It is said that Lamashtu crept into homes at night to kill babies in their cribs or in the womb."

  Ben tapped the ash from his pipe onto the floor. "Why? Why were
you searching such a place?"

  Helwing smiled at him. "Why else? Another clue into the mythos of the vampyre. There is something that is guiding them, something not entirely instinct—you hinted upon it yourself, not believing the presence of the vampyre in Texas to be coincidence. So, if they do not hunt by instinct alone, what drives them? I'd had my suspicions back then, yet I found nothing, just sand and dust and rumour, but after coming here it would seem there is something unseen, some mystery yet to be solved."

  They sat in silence for a moment, and then Holmwood said, sounding as if he were speaking more to himself than the group, "You mentioned they hunt in packs—like wolves. Well, every wolf pack has an alpha don't it?"

  Ben and Helwing stared at the sheriff.

  "Right?" Holmwood shifted in his chair, glancing sideways at them both.

  Helwing laughed. "How very intuitive—and quite right. And if that is the case here, the Alpha vampyre would be something no man has ever seen nor survived as a witness to create legend and lore. This would be a creature completely hidden within the pages of history. Considering that in its full context, gentlemen, I am unashamed to say, terrifies me."

  Chapter 29

  As they talked, the sun set in a blast of reddish-purple. Now it was completely dark, illuminated only by the fat moon and stars in the sky and kerosene lamps in the farmhouse. Though Sheriff Holmwood argued that at least himself return to town, warn people to stay indoors, rally as many men as he could muster, both Ben and Professor Helwing strongly disagreed. How far the vampyre had spread their filth was unknown and because of that it would be safest to stay together if they intended to survive until dawn. They had agreed to sleep in shifts. Not knowing how many had been turned, but knowing in part they would come, it was only a matter of time.

  Holmwood slept in the living room in an overstuffed chair.