The 11th Golden Age of Weird Fiction

by E. Hoffmann Price

  Her lips were still drawn back in a snarl, and those fixed eyes gleamed redly in the flames.

  All this was blended with the ever thinning semblance of a tigress; then another endless instant and there was only the mangled form of a woman, and a Gurkha who wiped his broad blade.

  “Oh, good God!” gasped Helène. “What happened? How—”

  “Maybe,” said Harley, finally finding words, “that Buddhist monk was right. Just as someone we love is beautiful to the eye, in the same way, someone obsessed with the idea of being a tiger would make anyone who saw believe that a real beast was before him. A sort of hypnosis. If a woman could take the beast’s personality, those who saw her would believe they were really looking at a tigress.

  “That is why I missed. I was aiming at the image of a purely imaginary beast, so I did not hit the human creature actually there. But Pratap Singh, diving down headlong with his blade, covered a lot more space than any bullet could.

  “But what the devil were you doing in that tree?”

  “Sahib,” explained the Gurkha. “That was a trick to deceive her. I knew that the demon would be listening, so in a loud voice I said that I was going to the village. Instead, I climbed that tree, fearing you might miss again.”

  “Your damned silver bullets,” chuckled Harley, “ruined a good rifle. You ought to have known better than tamp them home on smokeless powder!”

  For a long moment he regarded the Daughter of Kali. He swallowed his memories, then said, “This world is an illusion that comes from the mind and is lost in it again.”

  “No,” whispered the golden haired girl at his side, “it’s not an illusion. It’s all ours, and it’s too real to be a dream.”

  SPANISH VAMPIRE

  Originally published in in Weird Tales, September 1939.

  Waxing Prof Rodman’s spare Packard meant eight bucks more for the boss, and no sleep for me that night. Not a chance to study McKelvey on Evidence for that a.m. class.

  But when I saw Judge Mottley roll up to the gas pump in his big black bus, I dropped my polishing-cloth and put on my best Green Gold smile.

  That’s the one the division sales manager makes us wear when we sell a customer a quart of lube he doesn’t need. Green Gold makes your motor smile. It plates the moving parts with oil.

  “Good evening, Judge”—though Mottley wasn’t a judge any more. He’d quit that job as soon as he learned enough about law to make a good thing of private practice. He was a precise fellow, with a squarish jaw and the sort of eye that puts no one at ease. He didn’t stand for anything as vulgar as “Fill ’er up?” so I shot a quick look at the gauge and said, “About twenty-two gallons, sir?”

  He ate that up. What clicked with him was the time I said, “Twenty-three and a half,” and hit it right on the head. That, plus my industry, energy, and perseverance in working my way through law school gave me an in with the judge. Which I needed plenty, as you will presently perceive.

  “I do not need fuel. I do not need Green Gold,” he answered. “Indeed, I do not need anything but a moment of your valuable time, Mr. Binns.”

  That meant me. I was too groggy to remove my smile or start polishing the windshield. I said, “Uh—um—uh.”

  The judge did not notice the interruption. “I am pausing,” he said, after clearing his throat, “to tell you that you will not be employed by the firm of Mottley, Mottley, Bemis & Burton. Not even if you stand first in the final ratings.

  He adjusted his glasses. “I refer to this matter of student riots. I saw you overturning the ticket-seller’s booth in the Campus Theatre. I will not employ a lawbreaker. Good evening, Mr. Binns.”

  Before I could explain that the riot was not really a riot, and just a boycott of the Campus Theatre, whose management would not give students special rates, the judge was gunning that big engine and making a precise shift into second.

  Why pick on me? The ticket girl wasn’t in the booth when I pushed it over. Anyway, the crowd inside did all the damage. They pulled up something like forty seats, and jerked the fire exit curtains from their rods before the cops arrived. But Judge Mottley had to see me, out in front about the time I saw the law and checked out.

  I shut off the gas pump and hung on for support. It is tough, being fired from a job one has not yet gotten. Then the boss came roaring out of the office.

  “Judge,” he yelled. “Oh, Judge—”

  But Mottley was in high gear now, and not listening. Mr. Hill turned to me. “Eric, you jackass, if you insult another customer—by God, I’d fire you now if it wasn’t for the prof’s Packard—get busy and shine ’er up!”

  I got busy, and he slammed the door.

  Judge Mottley had awakened him from a sound sleep and that always made him peevish. Maybe he would fire me, though if he did, he’d make a liar out of himself. I boarded at his house, and only because he’d signed a certificate stating I was a distant nephew.

  The catch is, students can’t live off the campus these days, except with relatives. Nobody seems to marvel at the number of chain store clerks, truck-drivers, and the like who have collegiate kinfolk. But that’s the way it is.

  The only ones who don’t have devotees of learning in their families are the boys who own the gin mills in East Palo Verde. That is another funny thing. Liquor can’t be sold in the limits of Palo Verde, so anyone with the price of a drink has to walk two miles to get one.

  “Law, hell,” I said to myself. Unless a fellow has good connections, he’ll starve when he graduates. An LL.B can’t be traded for a ham on rye anywhere in the state of California, which is an eleven hundred mile stretch of marvelous climate and nothing else.

  I began getting up a heavy sweat, bending on that hood. When I got to the doors, I needed a rest. Also, there was McKelvey to study. My shift was from four till midnight. So I planted myself in the back seat of the prof’s car, switched on the dome light—I might sell him a battery recharge, later—and opened the book.

  Nuts for law. Maybe I ought to study medicine. Prof Rodman had the chair of biochemistry, or something of the sort. He was working on a crackpot theory of making synthetic blood, for use in transfusions. A great idea if it worked. He was kinked on blood. But he had two Packards. Maybe he wasn’t so kinked.

  I was too worried to concentrate, so I dug into the briefcase the prof had left in the back seat. More blood. All about building up red corpuscles for pernicious anemia—about fortifying the professional blood donors so they could put out a quart a day and not miss it. He had something there, if it worked.

  Finally I realized I’d better shine that car, so I could deliver it for the prof to drive to work in the morning. I turned on the steam, and made a job of it. The boss had gone home, so I said be damned to keeping open till midnight. I closed the station and headed on foot across the campus. Mr. Hill lived a couple miles beyond, in the wooded foothills.

  I didn’t want to go home. I stopped at a narrow path that branches from the dirt road. It led past a thicket which surrounded a little cleared space; the angle of an old-fashioned snake fence. I’d often caught glimpses of it, and now I had an urge to plant myself on the top rail and play scarecrow. Meditation, you know; I had a lot to meditate about, with Judge Mottley going off his chump that way.

  A big moon was rising. It made me say, I’ll go to China and fly a crate, now that Spain’s washed up. Not that I can fly, but a fellow can learn.

  Chaparral slapped my ankles, and poison oak brushed my face. A lot of people can’t stand that last, but like some, I’m immune.

  The fence was too rickety. Then I saw the flat stone. It was long and narrow and smooth, and oddly enough, the grass didn’t grow up thickly about it. I parked myself and began reasoning thus: “I’ll take a tramp steamer to Suva or Samar or Cebu. I’ll be a planter. I’ll plant my frame under a coconut tree and nuts for school.”

  I was plenty su
rprised when a girl said, “Are you going to sit there all night and not even speak to me?”

  Her English had a Spanish accent. So did her face and hair. I don’t know what surprised me the most, seeing how lovely she was, or just seeing her. Not being an expert on ladies’ wear, I didn’t make many details of her dress, except that it reached from her chin to her ankles. Just a bit like an old-fashioned shroud, but you never can tell what these co-eds’ll wear next.

  “Uh—say—I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “Hardly anyone hears me,” she said. “You were sitting on my front door as if you belonged there. But it’s nice, meeting you.”

  She had the kind of eyes you read about. Her hair was stacked way up, and a lace scarf, all white, reached down and about her shoulders.

  “That’s mutual,” I admitted. “But this front door. I don’t get it.”

  She pointed toward the slab where I had been sitting. The stone was about two and a half feet wide and six feet long. A second look at it made me feel funny all over. I hadn’t noticed the words chiseled at one end.

  “Aqui yace Doña Catalina…” I’d been sitting on a grave that dated back to the Spanish Occupation. The inscription said, “Here lies Doña Catalina.”

  “Wait a second,” I said, making a quick recovery. “Quit ribbing me. If you’re a sleepwalker, I’ll show you the way home.”

  She thought I was gosh-awful stupid. “I’m a sleepwalker. I live here, and you were sitting on my front door. Me, I am Catalina Maria Perez y Villamediana.” She added, somewhat sadly, “I am a vampire.”

  “Oh, yeah?” With this apt retort, I caught her hand. It was somewhat chilly, as what girl’s wouldn’t be, running around that way. “Let’s talk this over.”

  “You’re awfully sweet. Most people run and scream when they see me. Back in 1827, a poor fellow just ran and ran until he dropped dead. Heavens, can I help if I’m a vampire?”

  “Listen, honey,” I told her, “don’t call yourself a vampire. I know you’re gorgeous, and that’s a nice gown, but there are better words.”

  “It’s a shroud,” she cut in, sighing. “I do wish I had some nice clothes.”

  That last was reassuring. Absolutely normal after all. Pretty much like Mr. Hill’s wife, only better looking. I skipped that quip, and went on, “Baby, they quit calling them vampires about the time you were born. It’s bum stuff, being so out of date.”

  “But,”—she made a gesture, Spanish as her comb and hair—“I am one. I come out of my grave. Usually at midnight. And—oh, I’m afraid to tell you. You’ll hate me.”

  “Yeah, I know. You roam around drinking people’s blood, and you have to be home before sunrise, and you can’t cross running water.”

  “Oh.” She smiled and wrapped both arms around me. “My dear, you do understand!”

  When a dame like Catalina plants a blistering kiss smack on my mouth, without even wondering whether I have a car and/or a bottle, it is cause for triumph. Of course, she was a bit dotty on this business of living in a grave, and that makes a law student introspective. On the other hand, she was born in 1793, which certainly was an ample margin.

  Finally Catalina broke away and patted her hair. “I’m awfully sorry, but I simply must eat.”

  They all get to that, sooner or later. I had three dimes and a couple of pennies in my jeans. “How about a hamburger, at the Greek’s?”

  She shook her head. “I tol’ you, querido, I must drink blood.”

  “Oh, all right.” I took her hand and helped her from the tombstone. “Let’s both have a droppie. I’ll string along with you.”

  Clouds had begun to gather, and the moon darkened. I could just see a graceful ripple of white as I followed her to the road. Then she took a shortcut, and it kept me breathless, going over fields and through groves. Catalina had a trick of handling barbed wire. I didn’t, so my shoulder and the seat of my pants were a lot the worse for that jaunt.

  A dog bayed. His chain rattled. “Butch,” I thought, “if anyone sees me with this doll, I’ll be moving in with you.” But Catalina was heading for the bungalow across the road. I fell back a bit. If this was where she lived, and her old man heard her go in, and saw me, there’d be some embarrassment. Palo Verde is a narrow-minded town.

  She made another Houdini at the back door. Slick! Got in without a click or squeak. In a minute, a curtain moved. Catalina leaned out over the sill. I expected her to beckon, and I was ready to back down. Tombstones were one thing, and boudoirs were something else.

  But she didn’t ask me in. Quite the contrary. Her gesture meant, “Stand fast, buddy. I’ll be back soon.”

  Going to get dressed, huh? Oh, all right.

  Someone inside was tossing, restlessly.

  I heard a kid make a funny little sound like it was going to wake up and cry, and then it decided not to. Someone was humming, though the lights weren’t on. A drowsy, sleepy sound. It made my eyelids droop, and my fingers began to relax from the fence.

  Something startled me. It was Catalina. She’d come out of the house, and slipped right up on me. She caught my hand as if I belonged to her, and we set out across the fields and through the thickets. She hadn’t put on another dress.

  Catalina was whispering things in Spanish. English didn’t quite express her thoughts. She was tickled to meet someone who didn’t run and scream. Her hands were warm now, and so were her lips.

  Once we were back on the tombstone, she told me the story of her life. That proved she was wired up one hundred percent feminine. It seems she grieved herself to death about a fiancé some Gringo ruffian had shot to pieces.

  She laughed right out when I asked her about the chances of seeing her turn into a wolf. “Oh, you are so funny! A vampire, she is a vampire. A werewolf, that is something different.”

  None the less, I was doing some tall pondering. She seemed more substantial, since that queer, short trip to the cottage. And there had been a lot of pernicious and common anemia around Palo Verde. The butcher shops were sold out of calf liver by nine every morning, and at sixty cents a pound, the working classes couldn’t afford it. I began to get new angles on Prof Rodman’s frenzy about synthetic blood for transfusions.

  This put me on the spot. Vampires are settled by having a wooden stake driven through their hearts while they’re lying in their graves. A prospective jurist has to be public-spirited, like the judge who sentenced his own son to hang. Professional ideals, I mean.

  But Catalina was alive, in a way, and even if I were licensed to practice law, it would take a lot of constitutional amendments before I could be judge, jury, and executioner. Anyway, I liked her a lot. Maybe I could get her to change her ways.

  “Honey,” I said finally, “you’re a damn devastating menace, picking on kids. Whyn’t you tackle grown-ups?”

  Tears were in her eyes when she looked at me. “Ees too many of the college people. They drink gin, they smoke feelthy cigarettes. My stomach”—she patted herself in the appropriate spot—“she is weak.”

  Me, I hadn’t smoked for so long I’d forgotten the taste. I was economizing, having to pay that fine for rioting at the theatre. Catalina’s grief touched me. She needed young blood, and the way people live in this year of grace was unpalatable.

  Then I got the answer. I said, “Baby, I’ll save you and the kids of Palo Verde.” With a dramatic gesture, I bared my throat. “Drink deep!”

  She slowly drew back. “But no. I love you, do you understand? It will kill you, and you are nice. You do not run and scream. Have you ever lived one hundred and twenty-nine years without any friends?”

  “It’s been bad enough the past four years, going to school and being broke,” I told her, which was the truth. “But listen. Prof Rodman is inventing a tonic that builds blood. I’ll take a bottle of it. That way, it’ll be fine for everyone concerned.”

  This intr
igued her, though explaining it was tough. In the first place, I didn’t understand the details, and in the second place, women are awfully dumb about scientific things. She ended by saying it was perfectly clear.

  “If you are sure,” she said, eager yet hesitant.

  Catalina’s teeth were whiter than a toothpaste model’s. For a second, I felt squeamish, and she seemed to read my thought. “Will not hurt,” she whispered. “I don’t really make the bite. I just drink, with the lips and tongue.”

  “Uh—sort of a supercharged kiss?”

  “You understand everything!”

  So I finished unlimbering my egg-stained necktie. Catalina made contented little sounds that became a sleepy humming. In a moment or so, I wasn’t dizzy or nauseated. Her hair was the softest that ever touched anyone’s cheek or throat…hell, a pint blood transfusion didn’t seem to hurt the professional donors…“I mus’ not be piggish,” she finally said. Somehow, Catalina seemed to be getting more substantial. If she hadn’t been such a perfect lady, I’d have slapped her hip just to check up on the sound. I was groggy, all right, but altogether, it was nicer than I’d ever figured it could be, sitting on a tombstone with an armful of vampire.

  When the air had the taste of dawn, she stirred and said, “Is time to go home. The sun will soon rise, no?” She made a sudden gesture. “Look. Over there!”

  I turned. There was nothing to see. When I faced back toward Catalina, she was gone. A spiral of whitish fog seemed to be sinking into the stone. That did make me feel funny.

  She actually lived under the slab. The real article. It’d be nice if Prof. Rodman’s blood-builder didn’t work. Which gave me some long thoughts as I trudged wearily homeward.

  The sun rose before I got there. The boss had backed his heap out of the garage and was playing a saxophone solo with the accelerator to give her a fast warm-up. He uses Green Gold lube, so he figures you can’t ruin an engine, no matter how cold it is when you gun it.