by Lara Parker
“Toni’s, don’t you think?”
“They were . . . like a teenager’s. And there were some books, and a diary. I read a little bit of it. I know I shouldn’t have done that. It was private. But I was curious. Then I heard a noise in the hallway and this . . . awful . . . hideous . . .ghoul came through the door.”
“But who do you think it was?” Barnabas was beginning to panic.
“Jesus. I don’t know. A walking corpse.”
“Could it have been one of the workmen, drunk perhaps, and out of his mind?”
“Well, if it was, he was dead.”
Slow comprehension crept over Barnabas like a flood of ants loose on his skin. He turned to look at David, whose hair was wild and cheeks flushed. A whistle escaped the boy’s lips, and he shook his head. “God, Barnabas, that thing was scary.”
“It’s all right. We’re safe. We’ll be home soon.”
NERVOUS AND STILL FRIGHTENED, David finally closed the door to his room, and Barnabas was able to leave the house. He was not certain whether he could find the place where he and Willie had buried the body of the workman, but he was going to try.
He parked and walked into the woods. A storm was working its way over the mountains and the wind was howling, then whistling through the empty branches of the oaks. Drifts of leaves were knee deep on the forest floor. His feet made crackling noises as he tromped through the papery mounds, and the barren limbs over his head tossed back and forth across a waning moon.
How could he have been so stupid? Tracing and retracing his steps, he cursed himself for his carelessness. He had followed Willie blindly, too tortured by the act they were perpetrating to remember where they had dug. The ground beneath the blinking moon was a lake of leaves, fluttering, heaving, like the back of a huge dragon whose hide twitched in its sleep.
Finally, he saw the lights of the hippie camp flickering in the distance. He knew finding the grave was impossible, and it was not really necessary. The leaves had claimed the burial pit, and he had done something unthinkable. He laughed bitterly to himself. How far he had fallen from the crafty resourcefulness of his old life. How reckless and senseless he had become. He had buried the undead victim of a vampire who had risen and walked again.
And now there were two.
FOURTEEN
BARNABAS SLOGGED TOWARDS the clearing. It was past nine o’clock. He thought of Antoinette returning after her dinner with Quentin, and of the defenseless hippies who could have no way of knowing the danger lurking in the forest. He wondered what means he had to warn them. The flower children living in tents beneath the trees were such easy pickings.
Once he heard footsteps and he jerked to a halt, listening with his faulty human ears, but he was unable to pinpoint the direction of the sound. He could hear only the last of the summer frogs croaking down by the stream and the cicada’s insistent buzz. The sounds of the night were almost comforting, the insects and the toads, all frantic the season might end before they found a mate. An owl hooted the coming of snow.
The forest was burning itself out. Soon the hippies would depart and the clearing where meals were prepared, songs were sung, lovers embraced, would lie quiet once again under a still, cold blanket of stars. Deploring his diminished powers, Barnabas tried to listen beyond the wind rattling the leaves and beyond the whirring of insects, for the sound of a monster breathing.
He would be famished; his body squeezed raw with pain. No compassion would arrest his purpose, no mindfulness of age or sex, or of that spark brimming with small problems and large dreams, a spark to be abruptly extinguished in agony. He would feel only the hunger like no other—the hunger that drives starving wolves to carrion, jackals to the bones.
Nearing the camp, again he heard a sound, someone whispering under the rustle of the leaves, something murmuring and moaning. A hiss, and then a groan, and then another. Barnabas stopped, looked through the trunks, and saw a silver glade near the stream. The moonlight pierced the canopy and there were bright patches on the ground. Something was lying there, long and dark, almost buried in the leaves. It moved slightly. Barnabas recoiled in fear. In earlier days he would never have hesitated. He would have welcomed the chance to rid the world of another miserable soul. A swift thrust, a broken neck; and that would be the end. Feeling ridiculous, he picked up a large stick. Whatever it was seemed to be settling down for sleep. Perhaps he could catch it unawares.
He approached stealthily, but his footsteps in the leaves were like small explosions. The creature squirmed and rolled over. Barnabas raised the stick above his head in what he knew was an ill-advised show of strength. Gathering what was left of his nerve, he made every effort to convince himself that this act of courage was something other than a farce. But before he moved into the light, the dark shape split into two shadows, and two white faces stared at him. One was that of a young girl, flushed and sweating, her black hair a mass of tangles, her eyes huge and pale as slivers of the moon. The other face, flabbergasted and terrified, was David’s.
Barnabas shrank back, praying he hadn’t been seen, turned and headed back for the car. Shock and embarrassment for David drove thoughts of the campers from his mind. David was still so young! And he had left him at home, sleeping, he thought, less than an hour earlier. Alone with a girl! He reminded himself that they had been fully clothed. But they had been lying close to one another in the leaves, obviously caressing one another and kissing passionately. Her face was flushed. David must have crept out and come along the path by Widows’ Hill. Surely he had been afraid. Either that, or he had forgotten all about the creature he saw in the upstairs room. So reckless! As Barnabas drove home, he imagined the monster stumbling upon the young lovers in the woods, and he felt physically ill.
NUMB WITH INDECISION, Barnabas drove back to Collinwood, vaguely thinking he needed some means of defense. He parked the car and opened the door to the kitchen, then, in his nervousness, tripped on the sill and unintentionally slammed the screen. He heard voices in the drawing room: Elizabeth’s droning, modulated vowels and over it, her daughter Carolyn’s angry tirade.
“Fine. Think what you want. I’ll do what I like, and you can’t stop me.”
“No, you will not. As long as you are living in this house, you will respect my wishes.”
“Really, Mother. You are so old-fashioned.”
“Now listen to me, young lady, you stay away from there. Your Uncle Roger would be furious if he found out.”
“But, why?”
“Those people are . . . why, they remind me of . . . what’s his name? that Charles Manson and his cult.”
“Great. Now you’ve turned into some kind of narrow-minded bigot!”
“I am only thinking of your welfare.”
Barnabas entered the foyer and Elizabeth looked up. Her dark hair was loose around her shoulders and she was wearing her blue velvet robe with the lace collar. She had a brandy in her hand. He could tell at once that it was not her first.
“Tell her, Barnabas,” said Carolyn. “They’re really wonderful. They dance and play music and cook all their food outdoors on the fire. It’s a wonderful way to live.”
“And use our woods as their lavatory. Like savages.”
“Oh, Mother . . .”
“Barnabas, please talk to Carolyn. I don’t think it’s safe for her to be around that gypsy encampment.” Elizabeth held herself regally, but her face was strained with worry. Barnabas had a sudden vision of Carolyn in the monster’s embrace, her face contorted in a terrified scream.
“Oh, Barnabas,” said Carolyn, “you understand, don’t you? I’m twenty-five years old, and I’m bored, and there’s nowhere to go in town after dark but the Blue Whale. I sit in this miserable house every night and I never have any fun. We’re ostracized by the community. They all think we’re weird.”
“Carolyn, that isn’t true.”
“It is, Mother, and you know it is. Why don’t you want me to have any friends?” She turned to Barnabas. “You’ve
met them, haven’t you? Aren’t they nice? I mean really, really sweet?”
Carolyn’s long golden hair was tied back with a ribbon and her blue eyes, sparkling like amethysts in her pinched face, were glittering with tears. She was obviously quite agitated. Had she found a paramour among the love children as well? He could see her little teeth just slightly protruding from her thin mouth. Carolyn was spoiled, too dependent to pick up and leave this stifling environment and at least find some means of employment, some other life. She preferred to take shopping trips to Boston, play solitaire at home, and wallow in self-pity. But tears always upset him. Vampires could not cry.
He shrugged, feigning reflection. “Actually, I have not met the campers,” he said. “I have only seen them from afar. They do, however, seem to be harmless.” He realized he was trembling and leaned on the desk to steady himself. His hand brushed a wooden object, something like a toy or a puzzle, and he saw that it was an old stereopticon lying among scattered cards with paired pictures. “What have you got here?” he said in a dull voice.
“You see!” cried Carolyn. “You see how bored I am? I’m reduced to playing with some old thing I found in a drawer.”
Barnabas leafed through the cards. “Any good ones?” he asked, making an effort to smile at her. He picked up the instrument thinking he remembered it vaguely. It was beautifully carved of walnut, with a curved eyepiece and a fluted handle. Turning it over he saw the date of the patent under the slender grip, 1903, and a frayed label which read, VIEW THE WORLD FROM YOUR EASY CHAIR.
“All the outdoor scenes are boring,” Carolyn said. “But the Victorian ladies are so naughty. It makes you wonder who posed for the pictures.”
The edge of the stereopticon was trimmed in scarlet velvet. Barnabas placed a card in the wire rack and drew the oval eyepiece with its two square lenses up to his eyes, but his hand shook so much that he had trouble focusing on the pictures. The Leaning Tower of Pisa and its cathedral sprang into view, resplendent in the sunshine, with the Appennine Mountains behind, all bathed in Italy’s wonderful light. He allowed himself to visit the Taj Mahal, as well as the Tower of London, and enjoy a superb paddle wheeler on the Mississippi, all amazingly three dimensional, before he responded. “I think your mother is right,” he said.
“Of course I’m right,” said Elizabeth, a harsh timbre in her voice. “Roger has contacted the police. Just this morning. They have posted notices. If those . . . those derelicts don’t leave, they’re going to arrest them.”
“But how can you throw people off someone else’s property?” asked Carolyn.
“Oh, they are breaking all sorts of laws,” answered her mother.
“David’s been,” she said quietly.
Elizabeth caught her breath. “No. You don’t mean that.”
Scheming little vixen, thought Barnabas, to tell on her cousin. She knows no shame. He looked away from the Great Wall of China to see Elizabeth’s face, drained of color.
“He goes there all the time. He has a girlfriend.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Well, Mother, he is fifteen. You should be more worried if he didn’t have one. You want us to both wear black and stay in the house our whole lives?”
Elizabeth reached for her pearls. “Where did it all go?” she said.
Carolyn rolled her eyes. “What’s Uncle Roger’s problem, anyway? Why can’t he just let them be? They have to leave when it gets cold.”
Barnabas put the Grand Canyon back in the box with the Parthenon. He was about to shut the cards away when he saw another set of paired photos: plump, fashionable ladies in extravagant bustle dresses lounging about in Victorian parlors. Selecting one, he slid it into the rack and peered into the eyepiece. The scene was so clear he might have been looking through a window. A woman in a black and white dress cleverly cut to accentuate her voluptuous figure stood in front of an arched doorway hung with an elaborate fringed curtain, beyond which stood a giant potted palm, and beyond that a woodland scene with a stream. The woman, who was very beautiful, and whose blond hair was piled high on her head in a Gibson Girl bouffant, stood beside a small library table in the center of the photo, holding a rose. A vase of roses on the table indicated that she was in the process of arranging a bouquet. The three dimensional effect of this card was quite remarkable. The woman was forward of and completely separate from the background, and the hand that held the rose leapt out of the frame. Barnabas noticed the rug on the floor. It was Persian, of course, and bore an uncanny resemblance to the one he had purchased for Antoinette. Tendrils and rosettes of the carpet encircled the flounces of the lady’s skirt, and Barnabas spied a small black toe peeking out from under her hem. The woman looked demurely down at the flower. Sliding the picture back and forth on the rack, and trembling even more, Barnabas adjusted the focus to see her more clearly. As he did this, the woman appeared to jerk slightly forward, thrusting the flower towards him. A cold chill ran down the back of his neck. Only now did he look at her face, and instantly he recognized her.
It was at that moment that he realized the wooden handle of the stereopticon had grown warm to the touch. He released the contraption and it fell to the table.
“Barnabas, what is it?” asked Carolyn. She stared at him in surprise.
“Nothing. It’s nothing,” he said. “Please, listen to your mother. Don’t wander in the woods. The hippies . . . it could be dangerous.”
“Dangerous?” Her blue eyes pained him.
“Yes. They can’t be trusted. They must be made to leave at once.”
The telephone rang, which was a rarity at Collinwood, especially at such a late hour. Carolyn ran to answer it and Elizabeth gave Barnabas a look of gratitude. Carolyn returned. “It’s for you,” she said, her face in a pout.
He was surprised to hear Antoinette’s voice on the other end of the line, especially since he had only just been looking at her image.
“I’m so glad I reached you,” she said.
“What is it?”
“I wanted to let you know that Jackie saw that rug you gave us and she absolutely flipped. I’ve never seen her so excited.”
“Really.”
“She said it’s the most beautiful carpet she has ever seen.”
“Then you will be keeping it after all.”
“If that’s all right.” There was a pause. “I’m sorry I was rude.” Once again he was stunned by her sincerity, her lack of guile.
“Don’t be silly.”
“I am grateful to you. Nothing means more to me than her happiness. I was afraid she would be insulted, you see, since she had chosen the other one. But she actually lay down on the new carpet, stroked it with her fingers, and fell asleep.”
He was curious. “Is she there now?”
“No, no, she’s back at the camp.”
His felt a pinch in his throat. He searched for some way to keep Antoinette on the line. “I see you have installed a telephone”
“Oh, no. I’m on a pay phone at the Blue Whale. I’m just about to leave.”
“Oh . . .” Was she going to the woods? He was at a loss.
“You should come by for a visit sometime, if you like, and take a look at all the renovation I’ve done.
“Of course. That’s very kind.”
“Well . . . thanks again.”
And he was left holding the receiver.
LATER THAT EVENING when Barnabas parked on the road and stepped out of the car, strong gusts whipped the branches of the trees above his head. The whine of the wind built to a trembling crescendo, and tumbling leaves spun crazily in the air. As he walked towards the camp he drew his cape about him, feeling for the stake secreted in his coat pocket. Thinking it would offer some protection, he and Willie had cut and sharpened it in the basement, but now he felt foolish carrying it with him. Willie had been worried. “You don’t need to go chase down a vampire tonight,” he said.
Barnabas drew near, and he could hear the sound of a guitar and a plaintiv
e voice singing,
“Come all ye fair and tender maidens,
Be careful how ye court young men.”
Smoke from the campfire wafted through the trees, acrid in the cold air.
“They’re like a star on a summer’s morning;
They’ll first appear, and then they’re gone . . .”
When he reached the camp, Barnabas stood for a long moment, distressed by a peculiar sensation. It was as if he were seeing Paradise. The love children were gathered in a ring, some lying in the arms of others, some sitting on flat rocks or logs, while the singer played a soft accompaniment to a flute melody.
“They’ll tell to you . . . such lovin stories.
Declare to you, their hearts are true”
The hippies, hugged by the fire’s glow, were in a safe cocoon of golden light, while the dark forest lay just outside their circle like a gaping cavern.
“Straight ’way they’ll go, and court some other.
That’s all the love they bear to you.”
Loneliness gnawed a hollow in his breast; he ached to be embraced by a loving fellowship. But he was afraid he would be peculiar and ancient in their eyes, nothing but an old and foolish man.
As he entered the clearing, he saw the young faces reddened by the coals, their eyes focused on a speaker dressed in black who reclined on a blanket with his back to the path. Long ebony hair hung past his shoulders; his voice, whispery and nasal, floated over the song.
“Out there they got the madness. They got six million freeways, and smog, and cars and ugly women, and all the poison on TV, and insurance policies and taxes. Here we got music, a place to live, good hash, we got fantastic Owsley to trip on, and are we trippin’? Yeah.” He leaned back, twisted his head in a circle to release his neck, and relaxed with a long sigh. His voice droned on. “We got nothin’ to do but make love, and make music, while the angels sing. And children, the summer is almost over, but the family’s got to stick together. The time has come to spread the young love. Just remember, so long as you’ve got the love in your heart, you’ll never be alone. We’ve got to get clean of all the shit society has laid on us. We’ve got to forget who we were, so we can be ourselves. Don’t fall for all the hype. See the beauty.”
